PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Binmaley Campus
Binmaley, Pangasinan
College of Fisheries and Environmental Sciences
GE 2 - Readings in Philippine History

GROUP REPORTING
NARRATIVE REPORT
Contextual Analysis of Selected Primary Sources in Philippine History

"PHILIPPINE CARTOONS: CARICATURE OF

THE AMERICAN ERA"
by: Alfred McCoy and Alfredo Reyes Roces

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements on GE 2 - Readings in Philippine History for the Degree of
Bachelor of Science in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences

Submitted to:

Mary Jane G. Abarabar

Instructor

Submitted by:

GROUP 5

Members: Wendy Pearl Belmonte

Maria Fatima C. Garcia

Willy Jr. D. Doria

Rainier C. Zareno

Sannybhoy P. Torio Jr.

John Vincent S. Paz

Rudilito M. Caranay
 INTRODUCTION

As our instructor assigned us to report on the topic of Political Caricature of the

American Era, first we weren’t familiar with the topic. Then, we conduct research and
learned information about the Background of the Author, the Historical Background of
the Document, the Analysis of the important information found in the document, and the
contribution and relevance of the document. We have eight members in our group, and
we decided to divide those topics to make it less hassle, and all members will do their
part. Mr. Doria did the PowerPoint presentation while the others did their best to have a
good part in our report. After that, we rehearsed in Microsoft Teams to prevent
redundancy and misunderstanding when explaining our part. We are ready for reporting
anytime and expect to be on the online class schedule, so we reported on April 4, 2023 at
10 o’clock in the morning, to be exact. We expect to finish this report, but our instructor
will follow up on those five caricatures presented by McCoy and Roces, which will be
reported in the next meeting on April 11, 2023. Gladly, we finish our report properly in
order to have a successful discussion.
 BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
ALFRED "AL" WILLIAM MCCOY
Alfred McCoy was born on June 8, 1945 in Massachusetts, USA. He earned his BA in European
Studies from Columbia College in 1968. He finished his MA in Asian Studies at the University
of California in Berkeley in 1969 and his PhD in Southeast Asian History at Yale University in
1977. He studies Philippine political caricatures to understand the social and political contexts of
the Philippines during the American period and later worked with Alfredo Roces, his co-author
of Philippine Cartoons: Political Caricatures of the American Era. Though McCoy did not create
any political caricatures, his interest in them urged him to compile such caricatures from various
sources tom produce a single collection
Alfred McCoy
 A professor of History at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he also served as
Director of Center for Southeast Asian studies.
 Specialized in Philippine Political History and Global Opium Trafficking.
 Author of the Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Philippine Cartoon, Closer than
Brothers and many more.

Alfredo Reyes Roces

Alfredo Reyes Roces was born on April 29, 1923. He was a painter, an essayist and versatile
artist who is considered to be a prominent figure in Philippine art. His paintings started with a
figurative style but soon began amalgamate expressionism, Fauvism and impressionism. Several
newspapers in Manila like The independent and The Philippine Free Express and Bag-Ong
Kusog, a leading periodical in Cebu, included political cartoons in their editorials.

 Artist writer from the known Roces Clan in the Philippine print media.
 Co-author of Political Caricature of American Era.
 Known journalist in Manila Times.
 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE
DOCUMENT

1900-1941 Philippine Political cartoons gained full expression during the American Era.
Filipino artists recorded national attitudes toward the coming of the Americans as well as
the changing mores and times.

While the 377 cartoons compiled in this book speak for themselves, historian Alfred
McCoy’s extensive research in Philippine and American archives provides a
comprehensive background not only to the cartoons but to the turbulent period as well.
The Spanish colonial period in the Philippines was characterized by strict censorship
resulting in a lack of political liberty and minimal avenues for expressing political views.
Spanish censorship banned non-religious publications, thus compelling newspaper publications
to be distributed underground. However, the transition to the American colonial period provided
leeway in the publication of independent newspapers. Initially, newspapers were scrutinized by
the government to ensure that they did not contain anti-American sentiments which were
branded as subversive and were confiscated. As such, the four decades of the American colonial
rule became a formative period in Philippine history.
Censorship was loosened when civil government was established in 1901. This gave Filipinos
the right to publish without prior censorship of the government. Two months after strict
censorship was removed, Rafael Palma launched El Renacimiento (Rebirth) which became the
most influential of the early nationalist newspapers campaigning for the right to a free press.
Whenever the American felt offended with any publication, they used libel and sedition laws to
obstruct the developing hostilities. After facing two livet suits, El Renacimiento had to
discontinue. Nevertheless, Martin Ocampo and Fernando Ma. Guerrero established a new
publication, La Vanguardia, in the same office and survived until World War II as one of
Manila’s leading newspapers.

Context Presentation of Some Philippine Cartoons of Alfred McCoy and Alfredo

Roces
Memories of the Visit (Recuerdos de la Visita)

This is a cartoon published by Lipag Kalabaw on December 5, 1908. The cartoon

depicted the Filipino shoeshine boys polishing the shoes of the US sailors who have docked in
Manila from their US Asiatic Fleet in November 1908 and crowded into bars and brothels. The
cartoonist here shows one shoeshine boy asking another, “What did we profit from the Php
100,000 which the sailors visiting here are supposed to have spent?”. The other answers,
“Nothing, they left us the dirt from their shoes.”
The cartoon’s satire operates on at least three levels. The criticism of the sailors’
spending expresses a growing Filipino objection to the jarring economic and social consequences
of the American military presence. Reacting to Filipino complaints about the many disreputable
among the American veterans who had remained in the provinces, usually living off a Filipina
wife and engaging in drunken brawls, The Philippine Commission passed a law aimed at
weeding out the vagrant veterans.
The cartoon also hints at a more subtle criticism of American colonialism. If US rule
were like sailors’ visit would the Filipinos not end their decades of submission with little more
than dirt from America’s “shoes”?
The New Democracy

This is a political cartoon bannered by the Philipines Free Press on December 11, 1920. The
cartoon mocked Senator Lope K. Santos for introducing a bill requiring all mountain people to
wear lowland dress and change their names or be imprisoned for 30 days to five years. Santos’
bill triggered outbursts from the minorities who seemed were violated by their rights and culture.
The American imperialist government used the minorities as propaganda against the Filipino
nationalists who thought that they cannot control the minorities and have no power to transform
these people. This thinking had led the American government to extend their rule in the
Philippines knowing that the lowland people have no control to the minorities and granting
Philippines independence is not yet viable. Sad to learned that the minorities like the Igorots
were made as a show y the Americans in their homeland where they were toured and exposed to
different states and performed their culture wearing their traditional clothes. This act was
degrading to the Filipinos.
 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPORTANT
INFORMATION FOUND IN THE DOCUMENT
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
The Philippine Assembly passed a law authorizing all legislators, active or retired, to bear
firearms. The Manila press was out graded, but the legislators ignored the opposition and
promulgated the law over the screams of protest.
The efforts made by Alfred McCoy and Alfredo Roces in compiling the cartoons
published in the different newspapers and magazines in the Philippines during the American era
were remarkable. The various cartoons depicted the scenarios in the Philippines from politics,
economic and socio-cultural. Each cartoon was presented, described and analyzed by the
authors.
Though the Filipinos were happy being freed from the Spanish rule, their complete
liberty is not yet achieved as they again ruled by the Americans. While democracy has been
introduced by the US government to the Philippines, some areas were still kept in control like
press freedom. The Filipino nationalists were against this American policy so many have
established their own publishing companies to express their opinions. Many of those expressed
their resentments through satiric cartoons where everybody can easily gasp and awaken their
minds against the colonialism.
The selected cartoons illustrate not only the opinion of certain media outfits about the
Philippine society during the American period but also paint a broad image of society and
political under the United States. In the area of politics, it is clear that the Filipinos paid the price
for democracy modelled after the Americans. Patronage became influential and powerful, not
only between clients and patrons, but also between the newly formed political parties composed
of the elite and the United States. Thus, the essence of competing political parties to enforce
choices among voters was cancelled out. The problem continues up to the present where
politicians transfer one party to another depending on which party was powerful in specific
period of time.
The Cartoons also illustrated the convictions of poor Filipinos under American regime.
From the looks of it, it seemed nothing has much changed. For example, a cartoon depicted how
police authorities oppress petty Filipino criminals while turning blind eye on hoarders who
monopolize goods in their huge warehouses.
 CONTRIBUTION AND RELEVANCE OF THE
DOCUMENT IN UNDERSTANDING THE GRAND
NARRATVE OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY
Nationalism, Patriotism, Eye-Opener, and Discover our Roots
In the Philippines, the presence of political cartoons has been as early as the publication
of Kalayaan and La Solaridad. Nepomuceno (2012) claimed that commentaries in newspaper are
valid historical instruments, given that these works are corroborated by official documents.
Accounts pointed that the Philippine press has had a love-hate relationship with political
cartoons as only in 1985 has there been a published book on Philippine cartoons. The book of
McCoy and Roces (1986) was the first one to legitimize cartoons as sources of Filipino thoughts
and views.
The book of McCoy and Roces on Philippine Cartoons was a great eye opener for every
Filipinos who want to learn something on the plight of the Filipinos under the American rule.
This compilation of Philippine cartoons from political, socio-cultural and economic scenarios
was a remarkable as it awakens the minds of every Filipinos to love and protect their country
against any oppressors based on what they learned from the cartoons presented. The limited
freedom of expression among Filipinos during the American period was intelligently
circumvented by our Cartoonists and Cartographers through cartoons where they depicted all the
scenarios they observed from their surroundings. They have captured the hearts of many
Filipinos based on their contextual analysis of the cartoons they have featured.

SUMMARY

Studying the caricatures of the American period made us see the relevance of discussing political
and social issues to understand the national situation. It also moved us to understand the views
and opinions of others, which may differ from what I believe, in order to create a peaceful
discourse that could lead to the development of social relationships and betterment of the
country.