History of Philippine press / Carson Taylor.

History of the Philippine Press

47

Alejandro Roces, who is sometimes referred to as the
Hearst of the Philippines, is without doubt the most prominent and influential figure in the field of journalism at the
present time. The T.V.T., group of papers published by him
consists of the Taliba, published in Tagalog, the local dialect,
with a greater circulation in the provinces than any other
daily although its field is limited to the Tagalog provinces;
Vanguardia, an afternoon daily in Spanish, and the Tribune,
a morning daily English. The group probably has a greater
influence on Filipino public opinion at the present time than
all other Filipino publications combined.
La Opinion started about the first of 1926 by Senator
Ramon Fernandez (combined with El Comercio) published
in Spanish is the most recently established daily newspaper enterprise. It aspires to offer competition with Vanguardia of the Roces group in the field of Spanish readers.
The most successful journalistic enterprise in the history of the Philippines from a financial point of view is Liwayway. Established some three years ago as a weekly
periodical, by Ramon Roces, who is a son of Alejandro
Roces, and who is a young man in his early twenties, Liwayway has established a circulation of over sixty thousand
weekly, the greatest ever attained by any publication in the
archipelago, so far as is recorded.
Liwayway in the short space of three years acquired
its own building, an up-to-date plant with four Miehle
presses, modern folding machines, linotypes, automatic cutters, trimmers, etc., all of which have been paid for out of
profits of the business. Its success is undoubtedly due to
the fact that it gives the Tagalog reading public what it
likes to read. It is limited strictly to short stories in Tagalog and does not purport to be a newspaper.
It is worthy of note that the politicians and those who
furnish the funds to back them up, have apparently learned
that a newspaper, as a party organ, is an expensive proposition to maintain and is of doubtful value to the party as a
medium of propaganda. This is evidenced by the fact that
party organs, as such, have entirely disappeared.
Including the Philippine Collegian published by the students of the University of the Philippines Manila now has
twelve daily papers. The combined circulation of all probably does not exceed 70,000.
The combined circulation of all papers of every class in
the Islands probably does not exceed 300,000. Estimating
that each copy is read by 5 persons it may be assumed that
1,500,000 or approximately 10% of the population read a