5 Pesos

Masbate Province issued its own emergency currency in 1942 under Japanese occupation, when the collapse of normal banking channels forced local Philippine provincial governments to produce guerrilla or civil emergency notes to keep basic commerce functioning. The Treasury of the Province of Masbate was one of dozens of such local authorities that stepped into the vacuum left by the fall of Manila and the disruption of the Philippine National Bank network.

Provincial emergency notes from the Visayas and Bicol regions — Masbate sits between both — are among the more difficult wartime Philippine issues to attribute cleanly, as record-keeping was improvised and print runs were small. S459 survivors tend to show heavy use, consistent with actual circulation rather than hoarding.