50 Centavos

Macrohon is a small coastal municipality in southern Leyte, and notes like this one were produced under the emergency currency provisions that allowed Philippine local governments — municipalities, provinces, and guerrilla units alike — to issue their own scrip after the Japanese occupation severed normal banking channels. The Philippine National Bank and Commonwealth currency became effectively unusable in many areas, forcing local officials to fill the void with whatever printing resources were on hand.

Municipal emergency notes from Leyte are among the more poorly documented in Philippine wartime numismatics. Survival rates depend almost entirely on whether the issuing community was overrun, burned, or simply lost its records during the liberation campaigns of late 1944.