History of Philippine press / Carson Taylor.

16

History of the Philippine Press

this being one of the reasons that they had few subscribers
and consequently were short lived."
For some reason, after this long period of depression,
there was a sudden revival and between 1846 and 1848 three
daily papers were founded.
The first, La Esperanza, came out in 1846, and was published daily except Mondays. La Estrella appeared in 1847
and the Diario de Manila in 1848.
La Estrella ceased publication in January 1849, and La
Esperanza soon after, while the Diario de Manila survived
until 1852. The only comment worthy of mention as to the
contents of these papers is a reference to a supplement under the guise of an "extra" published by La Estrella on
February 29, 1848 containing the official reports of the capture of Balanguigui. (Probably Balanguigui, Samar).
During 1849 two papers were founded, El Instructor
Filipino as a weekly and El Despertador, a daily. The two
were merged but are credited with having lived only a month
and a few days.
This apparently left the field to the Diario de Manila
until some time during the next year, 1850, when another
daily came out for a few weeks or a few months, at most,
under the name of Diario de Avisos y Noticias.
In 1851 El Observador Filipino appeared, whether as
a daily or weekly is not recorded, but it did not survive
beyond a few issues.
The Diario de Manila succumbed early in 1852 but
was a reestablished under the name of Boletin Oficial de
Filipinas and continued as such until 1860.
Under the heading of advertisements, this paper carried a notice worthy of note to the effect that "each subscriber is entitled to a free advertisement of six lines, if sent
to the office properly signed before noon on date it is to appear." From this it may be assumed that it was published
in the afternoon or evening and that the subscribers were
few.
The Boletin Oficial de Filipinas appears to have enjoyed
a monopoly from 1852 to 1858, when a rival afternoon
paper under the name of El Comercio came out. It was
edited by an army officer by the name of Soler y Ovejero.
Its existence was brief and apparently unimportant.
March 1, 1859, Ilustracion Filipina, an illustrated
semi-monthly paper, was established. It died a perfectly
natural death on December 15, 1860, and deserves more
than passing notice as considering mechanical limitations,
it is said to have compared favorably with publications of