Philperiodicals

Panorama was an English-speaking Sunday magazine created in 1936. It went dark in 1941 after the Japanese invasion, and only managed to come back after Dec 7. 1955. From the very beginning, Filipino intellectuals such as Claro M. Recto or Carlos P. Rónulo wrote for Panorama, and in the 60s important Filipino scholars such as Teodoro Agoncillo and Cesar Adib Majul published works in the magazine.
During the process of revision of the Philippine revolution that started in that decade, Panorama published “The trial and death of Bonifacio”, an illustrated essay by historian Teodoro Agoncillo in which he tried to elucidate how Andres Bonifacio was killed by the revolutionaries and tried to make him justice. For Agoncillo, both the accusations and the populace had a strong prejudice against him, and the trial wasn't fair, to the point that Bonifacio wasn’t even told his sentence. He was shocked and tried to run, but was shot at Mount Thala and buried in an unknown location. Agoncillo’s account, based on sources, humanized Bonifacio’s figure and distanced himself from the more neutral and depoliticized views of the previous years, offering a more objective and nuanced view of the tumultuous years of the revolution.

Excelsior, a Spanish newspaper, prints a portrait of suffragist Rosa Sevilla de Alvero in its 818th issue. She was the founder and director of the Instituto de Mujeres of Manila, the first Catholic school for women in the Philippines. In addition, she was a strong advocate for women’s right to vote and often gave discourses at important public gatherings defending equality between the genders, family as a social institution, and stressed the importance of women’s role in society. 

In line with the recuperation of revolutionary figures in the 60’s, Panorama published an article by Cesar Adib Majul where he outlined the principal thesis of his book on Mabini (1960), the standard biography of Apolinario Mabini, Emilio Aguinaldo’s closest adviser, “Brain’s of the revolution” and Prime Minister of the Republic of Malolos. Mabini was an uncomfortable figure during the American period, and he was deported to Guam and only swore an oath of allegiance shortly before dying of cholera in 1903.
Majul argued that, for Mabini, the Philippine Revolution was a continuation of the American and the French Revolutions, and therefore part of the same universal history of progress. The Revolution was for Manini evidence of the people’s enlightenment, the exercise of reason that showed that Filipinos were civilized, defending their “natural right” to be free. Although Mabini understood revolution as natural and necessary, his democratic temper might have led him to consider the revolution against the U.S. unjustified when this wasn't the desire of the majority, defending instead a peaceful concession of rights which would end up with full independence. Mabini, as Majul put it, was a product of European rationalism and nineteenth century liberalism.

Leona Florentino (1849-1884) was an Ilocano poetess who apparently composed works in Spanish and Ilocano. She was the mother of the intellectual Isabelo de los Reyes (1864-1938), who in his work El folklore filipino (1889) included as an appendix some of his mother's poems originally written in Ilocano and translated into Spanish by himself. The poems collected by her son are divided into festive compositions and erotic compositions. The whereabouts of most of Leona Florentino's work and all that was written in Spanish are unknown.
Leona Florentino left her husband, to whom she had been married at the age of 14, and went to live alone. This unusual attitude for the 19th century earned her, together with the poetic work she was known for, recognition and exaltation as a feminist symbol in the Philippines. Hence, these articles report on the unveiling of a statue in her honor in Vigan in 1930, in the midst of the public discussion on women's suffrage in the Philippines.

The Young Citizen was an illustrated monthly magazine for first, second, and third-grade students. Most of its content was related to the education of the young Filipinos in civil virtues. It included sections on the learning of English, natural sciences, literature, and history, in addition to poems and short stories for children.
Accordingly, The Young Citizen published biographies of “Our heroes” from the long Philippine Revolution, which were to serve as models for the youth “growing” into independent citizens of an independent sovereign nation. In 1935, directly after the Tydings-McDuffie Law of 24 March 1934, The Young Citizen would focus on figures such as José Burgos, Teodora Alonzo, Leon María Guerrero, and especially José Rizal, who were considered pacifists. In December, The Young Citizen published an article on Rizal’s last hours by Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970), a Christian Evangelical missionary, who praised Rizal's courage and civic virtues, but especially the fact he was “a convinced pacifist” who died for the terrible truth of having learned “what he could do for his helpless oppressed country”, quoting Wenceslao Retana to distance Rizal from the Katipunan and the accusations of treason to Spain and to “his own country”.

El Heraldo de la Revolución was the official organ of the Revolutionary Government. 
On January 1, 1899, El Heraldo published an interview from The Shanghay Daily Press with Mariano Ponce y Collantes (1863 – 1918), an active member of the Propaganda Movement and one of the founders of La Solidaridad, and by then a diplomatic representative of the First Republic to Japan, where he would stay until March 1901. 
In the interview, Ponce defended that the Philippines had the capacity for self-government, knocking down any legitimacy for the ongoing American occupation by the mere fact of the functioning nature of the First Republic. For Ponce, the revolution had acted as a manifestation of the Filipinos’ will to be independent, a living referendum voted through blood and sacrifice, and he hoped America would “respect the supreme will of the people”, manifested in a new state, which, as Ponce argues here, was almost constituted in a “civilized manner”, with a central administration, separation of powers, its own press, its own popular education and its own national economy, even its own university and free associations. There was, therefore, no reason for any kind of intervention.

The Cabletow (1923 - today) is the monthly publication of the Grand Lodge of the Philippines. In May 1964, it published an article by Emilio P. Virata with a eulogy for General Emilio F. Aguinaldo, a Filipino patriot and a brother mason. Aguinaldo passed away on the 6th of February of that year and, with him, the last protagonist of the Philippine Revolution. 
After his death, numerous books and articles depicted Aguinaldo as a Filipino nationalist, praising him as one of the most distinguished figures in Philippine history.  As Virata put it, Aguinaldo was the redeemer, a messianic figure of sorts, and the Philippine-American war was due to a misunderstanding, with democracy being restored gracefully by the US in 1946. Aguinaldo was a political opportunist more than an idealist, and, although after being captured in 1901 he swore allegiance to the US, he remained politically active. Aguinaldo lost against Quezon in the 1935 elections and his anti-Americanism resurfaced during the Second World War, when he collaborated with the Japanese puppet government, –wrongly–hoping that true independence could become finally real. An uncomfortable heroe, Aguinaldo was prosecuted after the war, although he was pardoned and lived comfortably, appearing only a few times in public.

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.