50 Pesos

The Province of Cagayan issued this note under the Philippine Commonwealth's wartime emergency currency program, authorized after the Japanese invasion severed supply lines and disrupted the Manila-based banking system. Provincial governments were permitted to print their own emergency scrip to keep local economies functioning during the occupation period.

The revenue stamp affixed as the primary security feature is a telling improvisation — the Philippine government had no access to specialist banknote printers, so existing fiscal stamps were pressed into service as the nearest available authentication device. This practice was common across multiple Philippine provincial issues of 1942, but the specific stamp type and placement varies enough between surviving examples to complicate authentication.