5 Pesos

Pambujan Sur is a small municipality in Northern Samar, and like dozens of Philippine local governments during the Japanese occupation, it issued its own emergency guerrilla currency when Japanese military scrip became the only legal tender under occupation law. These municipal notes from 1943 exist in a grey zone — technically unauthorized by any central authority, they functioned on local trust alone.

Survival rates for Samar provincial issues are low. The combination of combat activity, humid climate, and wartime destruction eliminated most of the print runs before liberation.