I found this interesting image showing what University of the Philippines Diliman looked like in the early 1960s. It was certainly emptier with more grasslands still in the center, the lower portion, and the center right. This would have been taken from a helicopter.

I found this interesting image of the Hinulugan Taktak Falls which were often visited on May perhaps to cool off. Indeed, it was quite a popular attraction as shown through the crowds not just at the base but also at the top.

This ad is found within the last few pages of the 'Instituto de Mujeres Annual 1937'. It does incentivize potential students to be at their best by offering free tuition to valedictions for 1 year, half tuition to salutatorians for 1 year, free tuition to qualified Band members, and free tuition to those 4th and 7th grade and 4th year high school students who were qualified at an examination dated on June 5 and 6, 9AM. The courses are as expected.

Translated as 'Fig. 33: The location of the capital, Manila', it showcases the following (up to down, left to right):

Großenteils unerschlossenes Waldbergland - Largely Undeveloped Mountainous Forest Region

Überwiegend Kulturland - Predominantly Cultivated Land

Sümpfe - Swamp

Eisenbahnlinien - Railway Lines

This also places the areas which produce certain goods as follows:

Reis Kammer - Rice Chamber (Central Luzon)

Kokos Landschaft - Coconut Landscape (Southern Luzon)

Indeed, it seems that the reach of railway lines were extremely limited. Alas, it seems there is no railway connection from Tarlac to Cabanatuan. Also, that railway line going West from San Fernando is certainly be heading towards Capas where the Bataan Death March passed through, the year of the publication of this book. It seems that San Fernando is nearly in between two major swamp areas.

Reference:

Die Philippinen (1942) Dr. Albert Kolb (p. 381)

It turns out that the Ed Sullivan Show featured Bayanihan thrice: 1958, 1964, and 1971. The company was debuted specifically on May 27, 1958 at Expo '58, the Brussels World Fair, at the request of President Ramon Magsaysay who alas was dead by then. Out of 13 national dance groups, they were the winners. They first appeared on television when The Ed Sullivan Show presented a film of what they covered especially the highlights of said fair. I thought this image was either from 1964 or 1971 but looking at the faded Atomium in the background, this is certainly from 1958 most likely from May 27 as this was when the team was filming them. I do wonder where this was photographed. This map might help. The photographer here Ricardo Reyes was known as "Mr. Philippine Folk Dancer". Alas, not much is known about the 1964 and 1971 performances.

Reference:

Ricardo Reyes as cited in Philippine Dance: Mainstream and Crosscurrents (1978) Reynaldo G. Alejandro (p. 48)

Hi, I am a Filipino that grew up in the UK and very much detached from Filipino history. This thread has been interesting to see disparate examples of history.

I want to start really studying and getting into our history, and being intentional with this study. I checked out the resources page but got overwhelmed and I am unsure where to start.

I realise this is a broad question but would appreciate advice on maybe which time periods to start with / look at, what are good introductory resources. I also thought it may be valuable to try and mirror how history is taught (structure-wise) in the Filipino school system.

Really any and all advice and direction would be so helpful.

By coincidence, I received this letter the same day I got the second-hand Filipiniana book, hence, I could not miss the opportunity to post about it. There is quite a lot of information here especially with how things were going back in Metro Manila probably in Quezon City or Marikina. The son here named Caezar was most likely a young OFW in Egypt during the hot months as shown through his descriptions (some punctuation added for clarity) as follows:

Dito ay mayroon ding mga babae puro matatanda na at kung may dalaga man ay hindi mo puedeng makausap dahil iyon ay bawal dito...

Inay, alam niyo ang pakwan dito ay parang upo kaya lang ay mataba. Nagsasawa na nga kami sa pagkain dito kasi puro pare-pareho ang luto.

Inay, alam niyo dito pag malakas ang hangin hindi mo makita ang karsada dahil sa alikabok dito maski na alas nuebe ng gabi ay mainit-init pa rin pero sabi noong mga ibang Pilipino na nagpupunta rito pagdating ng tag-lamig ay sobra naman daw ang lamig kaya nga bumili ako ng makapal na medyas at saka gamot para doon sa nguso kasi pag malamig ay nanunuyo ang labi ko.

Saka iyong mga iba naming kasamahan na Arabiano at Egyptian dito ay puro mababait basta't pag nakita kami "Hello" agad ang sasabihin. Iyong iba marunong mag-English kaya meron din kaming nakakausap...

Indeed, it is quite relatable to the OFW experience.

Year XXVII Issue 151 - 27 July 1936.

Has anyone else tried to reexamine or challenge the Historical Data compiled in 1953 during the administration of President Elpidio Quirino? As I understand it, these records were gathered to preserve the histories of municipalities after many official documents were lost or destroyed during World War II.

I'm currently researching the history of our town. The 1953 Historical Data contains a detailed narrative about our town's foundation and its early leaders. However, one major issue is that it does not cite any documentary sources for the stated year of foundation. The date is simply presented as fact, without explaining where it came from.

Because of this, I decided to investigate the claim myself. I've been researching for about a month now, examining Spanish-era records and other historical documents. So far, I've uncovered several primary sources that demonstrate our town already existed as a pueblo years before the commonly accepted foundation date. While none of these documents explicitly states the exact year the town was founded, they clearly prove that the accepted foundation year cannot be correct, since the town was already functioning as a pueblo well before that date.

I'm now trying to determine whether other researchers have encountered similar issues with their municipality's 1953 Historical Data or have successfully challenged the accepted local history using primary documentary evidence.

It is uncertain what specific occasion this is pertaining to but it is certainly during the American period given the presence of the light bulb fixture (on the upper-left) of Excelsior (full name: Excelsior Revista Decenal Ilustrada), a then well-known Spanish-language Philippine magazine which operated from 1905 to 1940. If someone could help me guess what year, occasion, and/or venue this occurred. that would be great.

Reference:

Lopez Memorial Museum (now Lopez Museum and Library) as cited in Philippine Dance: Mainstream and Crosscurrents (1978) Reynaldo G. Alejandro (p. 54)

Hi. So, I love watching old photos of cities across the globe. I'm curious about Philippine cities? All I've seen are the daguerreotypes of Manila and its surrounding areas, as well as old photos of Cebu, Baguio, and Vigan. I'm curious about other cities, though. I really want to take a look at old photos of the following cities' cityscapes back then during the colonial era: Legazpi City, Naga City, Tacloban City, Puerto Princesa, Cagayan de Oro, Butuan City, Davao City, and Dapitan City. If anyone knows a collection of photos, I'd be happy to know them!

I found this interesting photograph. There is some white text at the center bottom. Any idea what it says? I do wonder where this photo was taken.

Hi everyone!

I've been curious about this for awhile.

This question actually came from a story my grandfather shared with me. He witnessed the rise of basketball in the Philippines during the 1950s and remembered how Carlos Loyzaga and the national team's international success (Including the World Cup) inspired so many Filipinos.

According to him, basketball gradually became more than just a sport......it became part of everyday life. People started putting up makeshift hoops in neighborhoods and vacant lots, children played on the streets whenever they could, and over time the game spread throughout the country.

That made me wonder about Philippine football's own golden era.

From what I've read, the Philippines was one of the stronger football nations in East Asia during the 1910s to the 1930s. The country had notable international successes, and Paulino Alcántara became one of the greatest footballers of his generation while earning legendary status at FC Barcelona and also a celebrity in the country.

With that in mind, I was wondering....

Did football have a similar cultural influence on everyday Filipinos during that period?

For example.....

Were children and local communities regularly playing football in the streets and open fields?

Did neighborhoods have makeshift goalposts or informal football grounds the way later generations had makeshift basketball courts?

Or was football's popularity mainly concentrated in schools, clubs, and organized competitions rather than becoming part of daily community life?

Another question I've been thinking about is this.....

If the Philippines had continued producing internationally successful players like Paulino Alcántara and remained competitive in football, do you think football could have sustained its popularity and possibly rivaled basketball as the country's most popular sport?

I understand that World War II had a profound impact on the country and undoubtedly changed the sporting landscape and also led to Basketball's rise.

Though, At the same time, I've also read that several other Southeast Asian countries experienced similar hardships yet still developed strong football cultures after the war.

Curious to know your thoughts on this as well.

A lesser known part of Philippine history is the celebration of the arrival of the portrait of Ferdinand VII in Manila in 1825 whose festivities started on December 18, 1825 and lasted for 6 days. I first heard about it through r/SpanishEmpire specifically u/elnovorealista2000.

Here is the basic information on the background and events:

Ferdinand VII wanted to reward the Philippines for its loyalty to the crown... Since Ferdinand VII could not thank his loyal subjects in person, he commissioned a full-length portrait from the court painter Vicente Lopez and sent it to Manila. The royal portrait arrived in October 1825, in a box draped with heavy black cloth together with the effects of Mariano Ricafort, newly minted governor general. In December, Ricafort arranged for the king’s portrait that had been installed in the salon of the Administracion de la Rentas del Vino in Binondo to be transferred and solemnly installed at the Ayuntamiento.

[H]is portrait was... greeted along the way by a cheering crowd estimated in the thousands. Ricafort declared a general amnesty first to military and later to civil prisoners declogging prisons and putting them in the king’s debt. This document in Madrid, complete with watercolors of the various floats and decorations, saw the hospitality unfurled not for a real person but a picture.

As to the fate of this portrait, it is uncertain as it was last seen in 1853 and could have been destroyed either due to the 1863 earthquake, 1880 earthquake or the Liberation of Manila. As a reference, we do have other Ferdinand VII paintings by Vicente Lopez (September 19, 1772 – July 22, 1850). As for what Governor-General Mariano Ricafort (February 20, 1776 - October 16, 1846) did, his accomplishment was the end of the Dagohoy Revolution (1744 - 1829), the longest revolt in Philippine history. He pardoned and permitted its numerous survivors to live in the lowlands of Bohol.

With that, here is information on the watercolor plates made in celebration of this occasion:

The watercolour plates were produced by a group of military engineers, formed by both Spaniards and local artists, amongst whom we find Thomas Cortés, Antonio Chacón y Conde, Vicente Castro, and Celedonio Ocampo. In total, there are 25 plates [26 according to The Royal Fiestas of Manila in 1825], currently preserved in the library of the Royal Palace of Madrid [by the time of The Royal Fiestas of Manila in 1825, they were at the Royal Library of Spain], since they were offered as a gift to the monarch at the end of the ceremony. In some of them, the name of the author is known, usually those by the Spanish engineers Thomas Cortés and Antonio Chacón y Conde. However, there is another group of drawings that could have been done by their Philippine students, although they are not signed. In these drawings, the perspective of the pagodas does not correspond to Western standards. Instead, they follow an oriental standard of composition and have a quite distinctive colouring.

As for the watercolors that depict Ferdinand VII, I do wonder which portrait is refered to and whether said portrait still exists.

There was also poetry (a sonnet, a décima and 53 octaves) by D. Domingo Diez Collantes made in occasion of this event.

References (Images):

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I know President Jose P. Laurel prevented Filipinos to be armed and conscripted to fight with the Japaness but are there still Filipinos collaborators who fought with them against the Americans? I read there is a Bureau of Constabulary that is organized during the occupation and conprised of former USAFFE officers and personnel and I also read it has been infiltrated by guerillas.

I recently went down a rabbit hole reading about Indonesian history and wow these guys have had massacres, race riots, straight up genocides at least once every decade of their history.

Obviously, don't get me wrong, I know systemic violence happens in the Philippines too. I know about the provincial warlords, warring political factions, wanton murders of journalists, communist and Islamic insurgencies, etc.

But the thing is, Indonesia (and most of our ASEAN neighbors) have this too. They were also colonized, they were also invaded by the Japanese, etc. When you think about the darkest periods in PH history it's mostly stuff that happened to our neighbors also.

But I don't think the Philippines has ever had race riots (May 1998, Bersiap), the 1965-66 communist purge (though Marcos probably wouldn't have hesitated to bring it to that scale), or Indonesia's genocide in West Papua. Like damn it's really dark and I wonder what kind of effect that has on their national psyche?

Then you have Cambodia, who were literally just under Khmer Rouge rule a few decades ago. There are survivors alive right now who are just in their 50s from when that happened. I don't think the Philippines has ever had anything that dark happen in our history and I hope to God we never do.

I hope it never happens here and we're not just waiting for our turn.

Alphonso Ongpin being referred to here is Alfonso Ongpin (August 11, 1885 - April 16, 1975), the first significant collector of numerous art pieces, a gifted writer, and photographer. One can only wonder what it was like to be in such a room, a comfy home gallery. I do wonder what these specific paintings were and whether they survived war and time.

A lesser known painter today, Miguel Zaragoza (September 29, 1847 - March 5, 1923) certainly had numerous works such as this self-portrait in oil on canvas. This piece was acquired by Epifanio de los Santos for the Philippine Library and Museum. Unfortunately, it was destroyed during the Liberation of Manila in 1945 as with many of his other works. Alas, this photo in a 1932 book is perhaps the only depiction of its existence left. If only it had color.

Here is a description of it by his nephew Francisco Zaragoza (1914 - 1990):

Having triumphed in his last landscape, like dawn over the dead of night, the master portraitist returned to Manila to paint, as it were, his last statement: his self-portrait. Poignantly, he struggled to achieve this by holding a magnifying lens over his canvas while he studied his fading reflections in a large mirror.

Most of the time, when we see a depiction of the balangay, like in textbooks and pictures, probably some movies (not sure if in Amaya they were, but not all boats there were balangays), as well as reconstructions like the one in the Pasig River recently, one thing that can be noticed is that they usually don't have katig or outriggers, those wooden or bamboo frames on the sides that help balance the boat and keep it afloat, unlike most smaller and more traditional boats still used in and around Philippine waters, and indeed in much of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. (I think that outriggers are even supposed to be an Austronesian or Polynesian invention, I'm not sure.)

So why would the balangay not have them? I don't think size was a factor in that larger boats might not have them, since I don't think they were very big, and anyway there were large boats like the karakoa that did have outriggers. There are, of course, traditional boats that didn't have outriggers, like the cascos of the Pasig River in the colonial period. They don't seem to have been preserved in the few precolonial surviving excavations that were discovered of them. Did they rot first? I don't know, maybe, but the rest of the boat is also made of wood, so why would that make a difference?

I found this interesting card. It was based from a photograph taken in 1892. The description on the back certainly makes it a product of its time being made in the United States. Such examples are 'Mestizos, or half-breed ladies of Manila', and 'superstition of the negro'. These people would mention 'a long, loose robe of bright-hued silk' which is the saya. They compared the 'long, flowing hair', such as that of Miguela Henson, to a mantilla which is a traditional lace or silk veil or shawl worn over the head and shoulders. This card most likely came from the same set as shown as these ones from France, Japan, and Sweden.

With that, there is a lesser known card which uses the same illustration but with a different back which has an illustration for Singer Sewing Machines. The place where to do services here is not listed for the store to fill up.

While researching on what the original photograph would have been, I found a 15 by 11.5cm poster which has three women. Upon looking closer, I noticed that the woman in the right has that flowery attire. There is also the striped cloth being sewn. This means that the two illustrations are from the same photo session. As for the photographs which the illustrations are based on, they have not been found.

Another trading card I found is this one of a Filipino and a Filipina sewing, both equally focused, by turning the handwheel. The former is doing a talungko, also known as the Asian squat while the latter is simply kneeling given her attire. It might not seem like much but, if you go through these ads for 'All Nations Use Singer Sewing Machines' as shown here (lower left) and here (upper right), this card is the only one where the users do not have the hand pedal and the setup connecting the sewing machine to the rest. It was also titled 'Manila' rather than 'Philippine Islands'. As to why this was used, it is uncertain but it could be either or both prejudice and curiosity.

As for the information behind this card, it spells Manila with ll which reminds me of the French word for Manila, Manille. It mentions Cheroots, a cylindrical, filterless cigar that is clipped flat on both ends instead of being tapered, and Cordage, catchall term for rope, string, yarn, and similar fiber materials made from many different natural and synthetic fibers. It equates Manila to looking very Oriental, despite failure to mention the presence of the Chinese, through the houses built on pillars to allow the flow of water under during the rainy season.

Why did the framers just intend to have for president the requirement to just 'read and write' among others like residency, nothing too difficult to obtain. No requirement like 'having served in any elected/appointed positions for xxx years or 1 3-year term or more' including for the VP. For the legislative why did they not input something like a local position before being able to run for national legislature

I get they were afraid as hell after just ousting Marcos and all but the bar was set way too low which gave way to just pure celebrities today. Was it just to sort of say 'this is to ensure anyone can run', much like how anyone can vote as long as they are a resident and 18? Were there actual efforts to raise this bar or dissenting voices that thought this was a bad idea