Philperiodicals

This article was published in Filipinas ante Europa, a newspaper published in Madrid (Spain) and directed by Isabelo de los Reyes. The article presents critiques of the establishment of American rule in the Philippines. The critiques center on George Dewey’s statement that the Filipinos are incapable of self-governance. It argues that, since Dewey claimed that the Philippines is not yet able to govern itself due to the many ‘races’ in the countries, Dewey is hypocritical because the United States is far from homogenous. It also presents that, in the Philippines, there are only people of Sino-Malay descendent and negritos (but very few). Despite their different cultures, Tagalog, Moros, Igorrot, and the like were brothers. Another point is that it attacks Dewey’s statement that Emilio Aguinaldo was unable to create a peaceful government, claiming that Dewey is the reason why there was disorder in the first place.

Semana was an illustrated magazine published weekly by Manuel Lopez Florez with important Spanish-speaking Filipinos as collaborators, such as Jaime Carlos de Veyra who had a column under the title Efemerides Filipinas (Philippine Anniversaries).In August 1954, De Veyra wrote two articles, “La denuncia del Katipunan” (refering to August 16, 1911) and “El grito de Balintawak” (August 26, 1896), in which he criticized the execution of Rizal as a product of fear and argued it was the cause of both the revolution and the Katipunan. He praised Bonifacio's abnegation and vision and argued that he was a poet “of action”.He also affirmed that the Katipunan was a “happy conception” and “a clear and righteous instinct in the direction of the people’s feelings”. Nevertheless, as a Hispanist he suggested Spain should have followed General Blanco’s motto (“Executing is easy, the hard thing to do is not to”), and expressed concern about the structural changes the revolution could have brought, for it “smelled of French revolution”.

Norberto Romualdez (1875-1941) was a politician and polyglot writer responsible for writing, for example, the first sarswela in Samareño. The article "Del País y sus habitantes: la psicología del filipino" is part of a series he published in book form in English in 1925 under the title The Psychology of the Filipino. The text deals with different native and pre-Hispanic customs in the style of 19th century anthropologists and folklorists such as, in the Philippine context, Isabelo de los Reyes. 
In this article, tension is created between the scientific distance that places the writer outside the presumably uncivilized customs of his ancestors and countrymen for the Western public, and the certainty of being indigenous to that same area and being as a politician, inserted in the pursuit of a national construction. Such a tension  is seen from the very first lines, in which Romualdez oscillates in his writing from using the third person to using the first person in order to speak about his compatriots: "[if] Christianity were ever to disappear from here, our people, simple given their innate religiosity, would immediately give in to superstition and idolatry". The paradox is that, theoretically, the magazine The Missionary, in which this article is published, had as its target audience the non-Christianized people of the Mountain Province (in the north of the island of Luzon).
In discussing medicine and the role of the Babaylan, he frames the Philippine past in global history, suggesting that cultures around the world shared common traits such as attributing supernatural causes to illness. In line with this, he discusses the mystical and healing role of Filipino women priestesses or "babaylanes," who used the performative power of the word, that is, by means of incantations and sacred words they were able to cast out evil spirits and heal. Those women had a preeminent role in society, which Romualdez, on this occasion, does not write too much about.

“Dead Stars” (a very popular text in the archipelago, where is part of the school canon) is the first Filipino short story written in English. It was written by Paz Márquez Benítez, a writer and educator who pioneered in several areas. She was one of the first women to graduate from the University of the Philippines in 1912, where she began teaching creative writing to illustrious students such as Bienvenido N. Santos and Jose Garcia Villa. She belonged to what has been called the first generation of Filipino writers in English. Márquez Benítez also compiled the first anthology of Filipino short stories in English titled Filipino Love Stories in 1928. Her short stories were published, besides the Philippines Herald, in Woman's Home Journal and the Herald Midweek Magazine.
“Dead Stars” is considered a meditation on the impact of American colonization on Filipino culture (McMahon 2011: 79) in the form of allegory. It addresses very popular themes at the time, present in Spanish-language narrative as well, such as the change of era between Spanish and American colonization, and the existing role models of women at the time: from the pure, submissive, kind and dreamy Maria Clara with a great faith in God, to the Americanized flapper, pragmatic, positive, cheerful and with a great faith in the institutions. Although Márquez Benítez was educated during the American colony, Jennifer M. McMahon states that the story does not reflect American colonization as a triumph, but as a system whose institutions oppress and condition (McMahon 2011: 96).

The Woman's Outlook published literary works by foreign authors translated into Spanish, as was the case in the rest of Philippine newspapers and magazines. In this case, being the magazine of the national federation of women's clubs, it is especially significant that they published a story by Margaret Culkin Banning (1891-1982), an American author and first wave feminist. This attests to the American influence on Filipino feminism and the stance of the editor, Pura Villanueva Kalaw. 
The story "De puertas adentro" was published in several installments and deals with the political wheeling and dealing of a leading suffragette in the United States and a senator and his wife.

The cartoon, which reads top to bottom, left to right, depicts interactions within a Chinese family. The father has bought his children a doll each at the fair, and they are asking their mother to dress the dolls in order to baptize them.

Semana de Manila was also linked to Spanish Franocist Foreign Propaganda, the Spanish
Speaking community of Manila, and the Catholic Church, especially the Spanish Friars, which
had played an important role in Filipino history. On September 7, 1950, J.E Casariego published
a historical article about the Cochinchina campaign (1858-1862), a joint naval expedition force
on behalf of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Spain against the Nguyễn period
Vietnamese state that inaugurated the French conquest of Vietnam.
Beyond the factual information in the article (most of the Spanish troops were in fact Filipinos),
Casariego showed both resentment of France (to whom, he argues, Spain gifted an empire) and
a staunch defense of colonial and “civilizing intervention”. This suggests that for many of the
hispano-centric Filipinos, who identified with the Catholic Religion and were somehow nostalgic
for the Spanish Empire, the advance of communism during the Cold War (and specifically the
conflict in Vietnam) was seen as a menace to civilization akin to the paganism that in 1857
burned Spanish Missionaries in Tonkin, and, therefore a movement backward in the universal
history that Spanish (and in general European) colonialism was seen to have introduced into the
Philippines and Asia.

El Heraldo de la Revolución, the official organ of the Revolutionary Government,  published the Malolos constitution after the Revolutionary Congress convened on September 15, 1898 and promulgated it after long debates on 20 January 1899. 
The constitution had 93 articles, plus eight Transitional Provisions  and  an  Additional one. A  model  of  concision and  sober style, the constitution was drawn upon the legacy of Spanish liberal constitutionalism, although its preface reminds of the US constitution with its “We, the Representatives of the Filipino People”. It provided division of powers, guaranteed opposition, and established a “popular,  representative,  alternative and responsible” government (Arts. 1-4), a presidential Republic with some features of a semi-presidential regime (Arts. 58-60), a Republic that was explicitly a free and independent republic, based on the sovereignty of the people alone, although it did not have any provisions on the electoral system nor on the right to vote.  
One of the most striking features of the constitution is the extensive bill of rights on Title IV, which could easily pass for a current one. Malolos also recognized the freedom and equality of all religions, and the separation of Church and State (Article 5), one of the most divisive issues in the contention.

The ilustrado Graciano López Jaena (1856-1896) was a Filipino journalist and reformist who was also the editor of the Filipino newspaper published in Spain La Solidaridad, which included articles about the cultural, economic, and social conditions of the Philippines in order to increase Spanish awareness of its colony. Some well-known Filipinos who wrote for this newspaper and who were the founders of the affiliated organization were José Rizal and Antonio Luna. 
In this article, published by the Spanish newspaper El Liberal, Lopez Jaena criticizes non-truthful reports on the Philippines and especially those written by Pablo Feced "Quioquiap", among which the racist article "Ellos y nosotros", published in the same newspaper three days earlier. 
A comprehensive sentence from López Jaena’s article is the following: “To vindicate before the public the good name of the Philippines from the insults and unjust aggressions inflicted by the pen of Quioquiap, and so that neither here nor there it will be believed that we are such as he describes in his articles, are our object in writing these lines”. López Jaena states that it is the job of Filipinos to describe themselves, their country, and their culture and that descriptions by others about the Philippines cannot be taken as true.

One of the most interesting elements of Graphic was its illustrations. The edition of the 2 July 1936 opened with a comment on China illustrated by J. Z. Santos which warned of the dangers of disunity when faced by an exterior foe. The article also suggested that in those situations the instinct of self-preservation could also unite the people, as it had in two countries (supposedly) humiliated after the World War that managed to recover the respect of the nations “rulers of the world”: fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.Graphic argued that the Chinese were trapped in a debilitating civil war that allowed Japan to dismember China and destroy its sovereignty. The interest in fascism, together with its respect for national sovereignty, suggests that, for Graphic, China could be able to defend her territorial integrity and rights by jolting into a strong national bond, that means, via an effective nationalism. Otherwise, as the image suggested, the giant that China had been in Asian history would fall to Japan and to her own people. In 1937 that nationalism shared by all countries mentioned would lead to World War II, of which the long invasion of Manchuria in 1937 was a warning.

The cover of magazine Semana presents China as a major destination for missionaries. It compares the total population of China with the number of Chinese Catholics. Underneath, there are images of Buddha in varying sizes according to the number (of Buddhists?) in India, Japan, and China. The caption encourages readers to support the missionary task by being the “rearguard with your prayer and alms”.

The serialized publication of European and North American literary works translated into Spanish was very frequent in the Philippine press at the end of the 19th century. Generally, they were often novels written by nineteenth-century authors such as Alexandre Dumas, the Flemish author Henri Conscience, or Italian Cesare Cantù (1804-1895). Cantù wrote Margherita Pusterla in Italian in a prison and published it in two volumes in 1838. It is a historical drama based on the life of a 14th-century noblewoman.
The novels used to be published in facsimile format at the bottom of the gigantic newspaper page, preserving their usual numbering, so that it was like a collectible that could be cut out and then put together to make the complete book.

Gregorio C. Coching’s life (1892-1961) was bonded to the periodical press from a very young age. During his childhood, he sold newspapers to help his mother to make a living after his father’s death. Years later, in 1923, he won the first price in a writing contest organized by the magazine Liwayway, where he eventually worked and where he serialized many of his novels, such as Dama de noche and Nanay ko.
The novel Alicia was serialized in the magazine Bulaklak (meaning ‘flower’) between 1952 and 1953. Interestingly, this chapter talks about a little figure made of beeswax that resembled the protagonist, Alicia. This is also connected to Coching’s early life, as he used his hands to make engravings as a teen. The passage has the tone of the ending of mystery novels when the crime is explained away, the hypothesis unfolded and the evidence pointed at.
Bulaklak was first published in the Philippines on 14 April 1947 by the Social and Commercial Press, and was similar in content to Liwayway.

World War II resulted in the destruction of Manila among other cities and the death of thousands of Filipinos. Many of those who survived were traumatized by witnessing events of unprecedented violence by the Japanese and the destruction of Manila's Intramuros neighborhood at the hands of the Americans. These horrific scenes were captured in accounts that were published in different forums. 
Psychologists and philosophers have agreed on the difficulty of putting traumatic events into words. For this reason, some of the stories are full of onomatopoeias and noises, something that has been called "Thanatosonics". They also abound with descriptions of images that portray the event rather than the sensations involved.
This epic account published in the magazine Philippines describes in detail the image of the death of the teacher Buenaventura J. Bello at the hands of a cruel Japanese soldiers for refusing to fold the American flag. 
The article has a high aesthetic value that favors the portrayal of Bello as a hero in a magazine whose editorial line supported U.S. domination of the archipelago. Although on this occasion the account is written by a third party (since Bello's assassination is narrated), first-person accounts of the Battle of Manila, the Battle of Bataan, and other confrontations in the Philippines were very frequent.

The Woman's Outlook claimed to be "The Leading Filipino Woman's Magazine" in the 1920s. It was the magazine of the National Federation of Women's Clubs. Published in English and Spanish, it was edited by Trinidad Fernandez Legarda, while Pura Villanueva Kalaw was the editor of the Spanish section. The magazine included educational texts for women written, many of them by men, such as the history of the sewing machine, an article on "Mixing housework with pleasure", or stories of exemplary lives such as that of Francisca Tirona de Benítez, who passed "From The Kitchen To The Executive Chair Of A Big Institution". 
In addition, literary texts written by women were often included, such as the poem in question, which is, like many of the Filipino poems of the time, about love. 
In 1926 the Spanish section was shorter than that written in English, and almost all the sections were written by Pura Villanueva Kalaw, with the exception of American literary works translated into Spanish for the magazine.

To understand the proliferation of the biographical genre in the Philippine literary scene, two factors must be taken into account. On the one hand, the literary tradition: Philippine metrical romances, awits and corridos, tended to describe the lives of heroes in an epic manner. Damiana Eugenio affirms that this biographical theme came from pre-Hispanic times, when the deeds of heroes were also sung in oral literature. On the other hand, the colonial and post-colonial contexts, under which the country needed heroes to unite the people and represent the values that should define the nation. A paradigmatic example is the conversion of Rizal into a national hero through different narratives, such as the biography written about him by Rafael de Palma.
In the first decades of the 20th century, two new ideologies emerged that would gain multiple followers and end up being banned in many territories due to the violent events that were generated by them: fascism and communism. In a country occupied by the United States, the champion of anti-communism, the publication of a socialist newspaper was an anti-colonial statement. Moreover, publishing an epic biography of Soviet leader Josef Stalin also functioned as a state proposal for a future independent Philippines.

The Philippines Armed Forces Journal was the journal of the Philippine Armed Forces, assembled after independence in 1946 with Filipino veterans from the U.S. Army Forces Far East (USAFFE). In February 1956, Betty S. Mata published an illustrated history of the Battle of Manila narrating the operations. On January 29th, the “D-day” for Luzon, USAFFE forces advanced into Manila liberating Santo Tomas University on February 5th, and then crossing the Pasig while Manila’s business district had been set afire by the Japanese “with disregard of laws and ethics” as a weapon of vengeance on the hopeless civilians. The Japanese, depicted as suicidal fanatics offering bitter resistance, made a last-ditch stand in Intramuros until US reinforcements secured the rest of the city, and made a final assault on February 16. The USAFFE had to fight for each building and drop an incredible amount of artillery until the 5th of March both Intramuros and the Japanese were annihilated. The destruction of Manila was blamed on the Japanese, and not on the new world power, conveniently depicted in this and other articles during the upcoming Cold War as a liberator, not only of the Philippines but of all of Asia.

The Philippines was the official publication of the Commonwealth Government on exile in Washington, published between 1941 and 1944, when Manuel Quezon died in exile.  Philippines included several articles by Quezon himself, like this “Bataan: One Year after”, which remembered the Battle of Bataan and the Bataan Death March. The Battle of Bataan was a military defeat of spectacular proportions, but would be used as a propagandistic symbol of brotherhood between American and Filipino nations and a shared defense of American values such as democracy and freedom, especially in the wake of communist threats, nationalist fervor, and social unrest that emerged in late 1950. The article shows this was already the case during WWII, as Quezon argued that the “ideals of freedom and democracy” gave men “the will to endure faggots and noose and firing squad” to bring those “dreams”, brought to the Archipelago by the Americans, to practical realization. The Filipinos, argued Quezon, “fought because America had given them Freedom”, even though there was some conflict with the US before they realized the “honest efforts of America to help them make progress in every field of human endeavor and [...] achieve the democratic way of life”.

Under “Ayon sa kanila…” (According to them), Magasin ng Bagong Buhay (New Life magazine) presents short opinions from the average person. The second letter, by a Mr. Pangodi, laments the dominance of Chinese owners in businesses of all kinds, and describes Filipinos as slaves to these Chinese businessmen. The author of the letter even goes on to claim that this is the reason why Chinese “lords over” the country and asks what the government is doing to lift Filipinos out of poverty.

The editorial is a type of short essay that advocates some cause, often of a political nature. Political literature has frequently been labeled as pamphleteering and regarded as non-literary political writing or, with luck, as bad literature. However, in certain contexts, the signaling of political events or social circumstances is fundamental for the country, and aliterature written simply for the sake of art would be alien to certain realities. Furthermore, it is superfluous and probably elitist to consider literature only waht has been written for no other purpose than literary delight. 
"Aves de rapiña" (Birds of prey) is likely the most famous editorial in Philippine history. Under the metaphor of birds lies a scathing criticism of colonialism, the U.S. administration, and ultimately, of Dean Conan Worcester, head of the U.S. Commission in the Philippines to advise the U.S. government on policies to be implemented in the colony. 
Although no specific names are given in the editorial, Worcester's policies and attitudes are spelled out. The editorial, written by Fidel Reyes in the newspaper El Renacimiento on October 30, 1908, begins with some general considerations about the powerful and the oppressed, already using the metaphor of nature and animals: "In the extension of the globe, some are born to eat and devour, others to be eaten and devoured". It is not trivial that birds and animals are mentioned (lions, eagles, snakes, vultures, and owls appear to represent the oppressors): Dean C. Worcester was an American zoologist specializing in ornithology.
Building on that generalist introduction, Reyes focuses on the eagle, a symbol of the United States, as a trickster bird. As he says, "symbolizing freedom and strength, it is the bird that has found the most followers, and men, collectively and individually, have wanted to imitate the most rapacious bird, to succeed in plundering their fellow men." Finally, he speaks of men who, beyond of eagles, have characteristics "of the vulture, the owl, and the vampire." It is from here on that, in parallelistic paragraphs that begin with gerunds, he enumerates all the bad practices carried out by Worcester. 
The commissioner took offense and sued the newspaper. Two years later, in 1910, Reyes and those responsible for El Renacimiento, among them Teodoro M. Kalaw, director of the National Library, were found guilty and sentenced to pay the offended party a sum of pesos that ruined the newspaper and led to its closure in 1910. Those responsible were sentenced to prison time, but the judicial battle of appeals lasted until 1914 and they were finally pardoned. The report of one of these appeals included the full article translated into English, the official language of the country at the time, as reproduced below:
On the surface of the globe some were born to eat and devour, others to be eaten and devoured.
Now and then the latter have bestirred themselves, endeavoring to rebel against an order of things which makes them the prey and food of the insatiable voracity of the former. At times they have been fortunate, putting to flight the eaters and devourers, but in the majority of cases they did not obtain but a change of name or plumage.
The situation is the same in all the spheres of creation: the relation between the ones and the others is that dictated by the appetite and the power to satisfy it at the fellow-creatures' expense.
Among men it is very easy to observe the development of this daily phenomenon. And for some psychological reason the nations who believe themselves powerful have taken the fiercest and most harmful creatures as emblems; it is either the lion, or the eagle, or the serpent. Some have done so by a secret impulse of affinity and others in the nature of simulation, of infatuated vanity, making themselves appear that which they are not nor ever can be.
The eagle, symbolizing liberty and strength, is the bird that has found the most adepts. And men, collectively and individually, have desired to copy and imitate the most rapacious bird in order to triumph in the plundering of their fellow-men.
There are men who, besides being eagles, have the characteristics of the vulture, the owl and the vampire.
Ascending the mountains of Benguet to classify and measure the skulls of the Igorots and study and civilize them and to espy in his flight, with the eye of the bird of prey, where are the large deposits of gold, the prey concealed amidst the lonely mountains, to appropriate them to himself afterwards, thanks to legal facilities made and unmade at will, but always for his own benefit.
Authorizing, despite laws and ordinances, an illegal slaughtering of diseased cattle in order to derive benefit from the infected and putrid meat which he himself was obliged to condemn by virtue of his official position.
Presenting himself on all occasions with the wrinkled brow of the scientist who consumes his life in the mysteries of the laboratory of science, when his whole scientific labor is confined o dissecting insects and importing fish eggs, as if the fish eggs of this country were less nourishing and less savory, so as to make it worth the while replacing them with species coming from other climes.
Giving an admirable impulse to the discovery of wealthy lodes in Mindoro, in Mindanao, and in other virgin regions of the Archipelago, with the money of the people, and under the pretext of the public good, when, as a strict matter of truth, the object is to possess all the data and the key to the national wealth for his essentially personal benefit, as is shown by the acquisition of immense properties registered under he names of others.
Promoting, through secret agents and partners, the sale to the city of worthless land at fabulous prices which the city fathers dare not refuse, from fear of displeasing the one who is behind the motion, and which they do not refuse for their own good.
Patronizing concessions for hotels on filled-in-land, with the prospects of enormous profits, at the expense of the blood of the people.
Such are the characteristics of the man who is at the same time an eagle who surprises and devours, a vulture who gorges himself on the dead and putrid meats, an owl who affects a petulent omniscience, and a vampire who silently sucks the blood of the victim until he leaves it bloodless.
It is these birds of prey who triumph. Their flight and their aim are never thwarted.
Who will detain them?
Some share in the booty and the plunder. Others are too weak to raise a voice of protest. And others die in the disconsolating destruction of their own energies and interests.
And then there appears, terrifying, the immortal legend:
MANE, TECEL, PHARES.

One of the regular writers in the literary magazine Domus Aurea was Fernando María Guerrero (1873-1929), a member of a family saga that included writers such as Evangelina Guerrero (1904-1949), Nilda Guerrero Barranco, Leon María Guerrero III (1915-1982) and Carmen Guerrero Napkil (1922-2018). Guerrero was one of the first in the Philippines to change a more Romantic-rooted poetry for an aesthetic that tended towards Latin American modernismo. This is precisely what the Spanish critic Wenceslao Retana accused him of in his book La evolución de la literatura castellana en Filipinas (1909). Retana was of the opinion that Guerrero had abandoned the poetry of Castilian roots that reflected the idiosyncrasy of his homeland for a bad imitation of French poets through the translations of Latin American poets (Retana 1909: 18-19).
Guerrero acknowledges his taste for Latin American modernismo in the autobiographical note that serves as a prologue to his posthumous work, Aves y flores (1971). There he states the following: 
My third lyrical phase can be described as a simple modernist essay or essayism. The main source of this new influence-Rubén Darío. The very modern French poets co-operated with him, the "rare ones", as the late Maestro would say.
He demonstrates this in issue 3 of Domus Aurea, in which he includes some poems that already connect with Latin American modernism. The series is called Antifonario and contains the poems "Oración de toda hora", "Oración matinal", "Oración de mediodía", "Oración del crepúsculo" and "Oración de la alta noche". In them he shows his readings of other poets from outside the Philippines, mentioning, for example, Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Morning Prayer". 
If we look at "Noon Prayer", the grandiloquent aesthetics of Latin American modernism, the characteristic references to distant cultures through invocations of Mesopotamian, Greek and Egyptian gods, and the sensuality in the use of colours and temperatures are already evident. He ends, in no way by chance, by invoking the "New Art": 
Father and Lord: You, Mithra, he of the sanguine eye,Great celestial Archer,who penetrate all with thy luminous dart;Thou of the red robewith fringes and fringes of eternal ignitions;Thou, Helios, and Thou, Osiris,by whom lives the empire of the constellationsand the miracle of the iris is performed on the heights;Thou, fair Emperor,send us thy gifts,Thy purples of glory and Thy vital warmth:Melt with Thy coals all hearts,So that at last, O Lord,they may emerge from the arctic cold of their inertia and disdain,and in a new Equatorthey may receive the Spirit of the New Art. Amen.

Domingo Ponce, along with Crisanto Evangelista and Cirilo Bognot, was the founder of the "Partido Obrero de Filipinas" (Labor Party of the Philippines). Founded in 1924,this organization saw itself as the antithesis of colonial political parties and went so far as to label other politicians as "traitors to independence" (Constantino, 1975, P. 360).  A year before the establishment of the organization, this article, written by Domingo Ponce, was published in the Bogang-Buhay newspaper. Much like other travelogues in which authors include similarities to their homeland, the article shows how members of the Lehion Lodge hold on to their homes. More specifically, the members leave Manila for Cebu, but when their boat gets delayed they rejoice in the fact that they get to stay in the city for a few more hours. Moreover, when the boat eventually does depart, the members keep their eye out for Manila until the city is no longer visible. It is interesting how, in their purpose of building a nation, travelogues served not just as a point of comparison when writers traveled abroad, but also as a way to explore and make their own country known.

Bulaklak Magazine (“Flower Magazine”), which subtitled Hiyas ng Tahanan (“Gem of the Home"), was a Tagalog-language magazine that was first published on 14 April 1947. Published by the Social and Commercial Press of Beatriz M. de Guballa, Bulaklak, one of the most popular weeklies in the 50s, was similar to Liwayway magazine, and featured prose, serials, poetry, entertainment news, and comic strips. It was known for its superheroine Darna, developed by Mars Ravelo in 1947, who bought the publication until it had to close shop due to the global economic crisis in 1983.
On December 3, 1952, Bulaklak published a poem dedicated to Andrés Bonifacio by Pedro B. Torres, with comic-like illustrations by Mar. C. Santiago of both Bonifacio’s monument and of a revolutionary holding the flag of the Katipunan. Torres gave a grim description of Bonifacio’s fight, talking of blood and vengeance on the field of Balintawak and giving a fierce image of Bonifacio, whose courage and bravery made the Philippines a “free and famous nation”, highlighting violence and adventure elements in a comic-like manner, which gave the revolution a menacing hybrid and transcultural look, neither pro-American nor Hispanista but authentically Filipino.

The Philippines Boy Scout was one of the first juvenile publications of the Philippines in English. It was created in November 1929 as the magazine of the Philippines Boy Scout movement with Jose P. Giron as its editor. Its objective was to address the young Filipino with stories that were not imported from abroad, offering thrill, inspiration, and information with a “local color” and “characters from an environment akin to his”. It informed on the acts of the Philippines boy scouts but also included excerpts of lectures and other useful information, short stories, and the column Poet’s corner. 
It is significant that already in its first number, Aguedo Cagiñgin, a high school principal, mentioned the figure of Andrés Bonifacio, the founder of the Katipunan. Cagiñgin argued that it couldn't be contested that he was a patriot whose life was dedicated to his country and praised his virtues. Nevertheless, as in the case of other revolutionaries, his life was interpreted “in terms of the platform of the greatest boy organization in the world” and therefore, in an idea of the country overtly pro-American. Contradictorily, Bonifacio died to save the country, but young Filipinos still were training for citizenship.