History of Philippine press / Carson Taylor.

30

History of the Philippine Press

Ang Pliegong Tagalog was established as a popular
weekly by Juan Atayde, for the reason, as he announced
that all other Tagalog papers had ceased publication and he
considered it necessary to have a paper published in that
language until such time as the people should learn to speak
Spanish.
It was one of the many victims of the Katipunan and
died before the end of 1896.
La Hoja Dominical was published by the Dominican
fathers and distributed free during part of the year. It was
primarily religious and made an effort to create a better
feeling between the Spaniards and the natives.
To quote Retana, "It ceased publication by force of circumstances, at the end of the unhappy year of 1896, during
which so many other papers succumbed."
The Tagalog revolution put most papers out of business. They could not be delivered in the provinces.
During 1897 not a single paper was founded. It is
worthy of note that a new daily was established in Iloilo
early in 1898 under the name El Heraldo de Iloilo. It doubtless ceased publication after Dewey destroyed Montejo's
fleet and established the blockade.
With American occupation in 1898 came the freedom
of the press and Manila was flooded with newspapers of
various kinds and classes during the next two years. To be
sure there was a military censorship but it was not very
strict until after the outbreak of the revolution early in 1899.
The first American paper published in the islands was
The Bounding Billow. It was printed on Dewey's flagship,
the Olympia, by two sailors soon after Dewey destroyed the
Spanish fleet. It contained four pages about eight by
twelve inches. It had an attractive front cover design in
colors with a cut of Admiral Dewey and the Olympia. The
back cover carried a full page cut with a rather crude outline of the battle formation of the fleet. The cuts were probably made in Hongkong. Inside was a full description of
the battle telling how "Dewey did the Dons." It sold for 25
cents gold per copy. Thousands of copies were sold to the
members of the fleet. Several editions were printed and
sold to the soldiers after the capture of Manila, as souvenirs..Between August 13, Occupation Day, and December 31,
1898, no less than 17 papers were started, only one of which,
The Manila Times, is still in existence.
The Official Gazette, published by the military government, August 23, was the first Yankee publication on Philippine soil. It contained military orders designating the first