20 Centavos

Bantayan is a small island municipality in Cebu Province, and like dozens of Philippine local governments during the Japanese occupation, its treasury issued emergency guerrilla or civilian currency when the pre-war Commonwealth peso became impossible to obtain. These municipal scrip issues were authorized under desperate circumstances — sometimes by local officials acting with thin legal backing, sometimes under direct military pressure — and printed on whatever paper was available, frequently with typewriters, rubber stamps, or hand lettering.

Survival rates are unpredictable. Island communities faced particular isolation, and many of these notes were redeemed, destroyed, or simply lost before any systematic collecting began.