George Braseros is certain there is gold buried in the jungles of Mindanao. He is so sure it is there, just waiting to be dug up, that he has sunk a small fortune of his own into searching for it. And he knows other men have died for it.

George Braseros (top right) and Titing Mendoza believe the hole they dug to find a cache of Yamashita's treasure still holds vast wealth. A faded document (above) purportedly identifies markings on buried gold, while the camera-shy team excavating a site near General Santos City (below) wants its work kept secret.

As we bump along a track heading north out of the town of Digos, a chaotic, polluted port town like so many others that cling to the coast of the Philippines' second largest island, Braseros becomes more animated. He is taking me to a coconut grove where he and the owner of the land sank a shaft two years ago after an elderly Japanese man "read" signs left on rocks and carved onto the trunks of trees identifying it as a treasure site. His belief is absolute.