5 Pesos

Guiuan sits at the southeastern tip of Samar — one of the first Philippine landmasses retaken by MacArthur's forces in late 1944, but this note precedes that by a year. During the Japanese occupation, provincial and municipal governments across the Philippines were permitted, sometimes compelled, to issue their own emergency currency when Japanese Military Administration notes failed to circulate adequately in remote areas. Eastern Samar was precisely the kind of isolated coastal province where Manila-issued scrip arrived late and in insufficient quantity.

Municipal issues from this level of local authority are among the least documented of all Philippine emergency currency — Guiuan specifically produced very limited quantities, and wartime humidity in the Visayas was brutal on paper.