Now for a description of the different printing-presses--or, rather,
places--in the Philippines, from the earliest named by Retana in his
Biblioteca, in all fourteen distinct localities, where printing was
carried on in the three islands of Luzon, Panay and Cebu.
1.--From an analysis of the titles I find that Manila ranks earliest,
where (with limitations to be set later) a printing-press was
established in 1630, in which year, at the Dominican College of
St. Thomas, a Spanish-Japanese dictionary, the work of Portuguese
Jesuit missionaries and scholars, now translated into Spanish, was
printed by Tomas Pinpin, a native Tagal, and Jacinto Magaurlua. This
dictionary (now extremely rare), even though not the first book
printed in the islands, as stated by Retana, must yet be ranked among
the earliest specimens of Philippine literature.
In his Bibliography three different titles (we may observe) bear
the imprint of Manila, with the name of this city spelled according
to the ancient aboriginal form, albeit but slightly varied from
the present--"Maynila"--otherwise, as I have read it, "Mainilla,"
a variant in orthography one encounters in old chronicles--a Tagal
word (it seems) signifying a species of shrub or bush, in the Spanish
rendered arbusto, that in 1571 was found to cover the site of the new
city projected by the conquistadores, under the leadership of Miguel
Lopez de Legazpi.
In this same year, it may be added, the site of the future metropolis
of Malaysia was taken possession of by Spanish arms, with due
observance of ceremonial, sealed with the three local chieftains,
[15] Lacandola, Matanda and Soliman, by blood-bargain--pacto de
sangre. [16] Here, too, at Manila, the second church in Malaysia
devoted to the Supreme Being, the first having been founded at Cebu,
was dedicated the same year (1571) to God, under the most fitting title
of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, first great missionary to
heathendom. At Cebu, by agreement with Chief Tupas, the standard of
Christian comity--the Cross--had been reared in 1565, and its church
dedicated in honor of St. Michael Archangel, name-saint of Legazpi,
though shortly after rechristened El Santo Nino--the Holy Child--its
title to-day.
The three works then printed at "Maynila," or Bush Town, in Luzon,
are a Manual of Devotions to St. Roch, translated into Tagal by the
Augustinian missionary, Esteban Diez, a skilled Tagalist, in 1820;
a periodical--the Revista Catolica--whereof the first and only number
(p. 309) was issued in 1890; and lastly, a weekly paper (the same as
the former) in Tagal, published in 1896.
2.--The second place to witness the establishment of a press
was Sampaloc, in Zambales province, in Luzon, where, in 1736,
at the Franciscan convent of Our Lady of Loreto, was printed the
Augustinian Diego Bergano's Arte, in Pampanga--first fruit, it seems,
of typographical genius in that pueblo. While the last imprint with the
name of Sampaloc is an almanac, or church calendar, for the year 1838
(more probably, however, printed the year ahead), when the old press,
founded by Franciscan friars a hundred years before, disappears.
3.--At Tayabas, in the province of the same name, in Luzon (p. 31),
was printed a Tagal dictionary, by the Franciscan, Totanes, now
supplanted, however, by Noceda's far superior work on philological
score, especially with the additions made thereto by the Augustinians
in the Manila edition of 1860. This Tayabas imprint is the only work
I have encountered with the name of that pueblo.
4.--The first Cavite imprint (p. 38) dates (it seems) from 1815--a
church calendar for the following year; while the last, with the
name of this Manila suburb written, however, with a K--"Kavite"--is
an appeal of the revolutionary party in 1898 (p. 451), under the
official seal of the Gobierno Dictatorial de Filipinas.
5.--Binondo is the fifth place, whereof the first work--statistical
reports of Franciscan missionaries--was printed in 1865; the last,
Jose Patricio Clemente's Moral Lectures for Youth (p. 540), in
1872. In regard, however, to this town, it should be observed that
in his earlier bibliography (ed. 1893) Retana names a work printed
by Pinpin in the Hospital of St. Gabriel, at Binondo, in 1623.
6.--At Vigan, the old Villa Fernandina of the Ilocos, known also to
Spaniards as Nueva Segovia, a city founded in the sixteenth century
by Juan Salcedo, one of the captains under Legazpi, and so christened
by him in memory of his native place in Spain, but now known as Lalo,
or Lal-lo,--here was started a Sunday newspaper, El Eco de Vigan,
published in Ilocano in 1883, that died, however, a year after birth.
7.--In Iloilo (on the island of Panay) was printed, in 1885, the
pastoral letter of Alejandro Arrue, Recoleto bishop of St. Isabel,
or Elizabeth, of Jaro.
8.--Then comes Guadalupe, eighth place on our list, a sanctuary village
on the left bank of the river Tasig, a couple of leagues from Manila,
a shrine founded by Augustinians in 1601, in honor of St. Nicholas,
the wonder-worker of Tolentino, a place visited yearly by great numbers
of Chinese Confucians, as well as Christians, who hold that saint in
highest and most singular veneration. At Guadalupe, in 1886, issued
two works from the orphanage press--An Abridgment of the Christian
Doctrine of Pouguet and Fleuri, drawn up in Bisaya by Father Mateo
Perez, Augustinian cure of Argao; and Lozano's Novena to St. Thomas
of Villanova. The last imprint of Guadalupe--a Tagal Catechism, by
Luis de Amezquita, a brother missionary of Perez--bears the date 1890.
9.--The earliest sample of Cebu print--the island where, under
Legazpi, three centuries earlier, civilization first found a footing in
Malaysia--is a work that elicits from Retana remarkable praise, in view
of the difficulties that attended its printing; the paper--such was the
dearth in the Visayas of proper material for good press-work--being
of five or six different qualities in body, make, color. This work,
that I think we may style a triumph of adaptive art, is the Ensayo
para una Galeria de Asturianos ilustres, a genealogical monument
(in three volumes), by the Augustinian antiquary, Fabiano Rodriguez,
begun in 1888 and completed in 1893. While the last Cebu imprint,
a government statistical report on crime and the like, is dated 1892.
10.--Tambobong, a pueblo near the coast, in Tondo province, about
three miles from Manila, comes tenth in our list, where, at the
orphan asylum of Our Lady of Consolation, in 1889, was printed a
weekly newspaper--the Revista Catolica de Filipinas--discontinued
in 1896. While the last imprint from this press--An Abridgment of
the History of Spain (of only eight pages)--was issued, presumably,
in 1897.
11.--At Nueva Caceres, or Camarines, in Luzon, a town founded in
the sixteenth century by Governor Francisco Sande, in memory of his
birthplace in Estremadura, but now known even officially as Naga,
the first work bearing the name of that pueblo--a hand-book of
devotions--issued from the press of the Sagrada Familia, in 1893; and
two years later (in 1895) the last--A Life of St. Monica and her son,
St. Augustine--written, the same as the former, in Bicol dialect.
12.--In 1895, we read the earliest printed samples of Malabon art--a
poetical tribute of gratitude to Our Lady of Welcome--Bien-Venida,
one of the many titles of the Mother of God, so dear to Philippine
soul, by Fructuoso Arias Camison, from the orphan-press of Our Lady
of Consolation (in care of Augustinians). Only once, it may be noted,
is the name of this pueblo--encountered quite frequently in Retana,
the same (he says) as Tambobong, written "Malabong," a somewhat unusual
form of spelling--employed by Manuel Sastron, in his description of
Batangas, printed in 1895.
From several specimens of Malabon press-work, now before me, I may
observe that, for accuracy in composition, neatness--in brief, of
general excellence in workmanship--these samples of the orphanage
establishment at Malabon would not fail to honor even a Philadelphia
craftsman.
Two years ago (in 1898), just prior to the siege of Manila, under
the care of two Fathers and four lay-brothers of the Augustinians,
resident at this orphan asylum, one hundred and one lads were being
taught the following trades: 13 compositors, 12 press-workers, 30
bookbinders, 3 gilders, 43 candlemakers, while 44 other youngsters,
too small for hard work, were, the same as their seniors, given food,
clothing, and shelter; [17] while similarly, at Mandaloya orphan
asylum for girls, conducted by twenty-two sisters (of the same order),
a hundred and twenty-two lassies were taught music (piano), painting,
drawing, embroidery, flower-, lace- and dress-making, hair-dressing,
laundry-work, and sewing. [18]
But alas! it is feared that through the grim fate of war a like
disaster, as has wrecked many another fair shrine of learning and
art in countries even nearer our own, has befallen our studios
and laboratories at Malabon and Mandaloya, that therefrom their
inmates--orphans, instructors and care-takers are now wanderers,
with their treasures ravished, their homes destroyed.
13.--Then we meet with a work printed in 1896, at the revolutionary
press at Imus, in Cavite province, in Luzon,--a proclamation (in
Tagal)--the only imprint bearing the name of this pueblo.
14.--Finally, in 1898, at Mandaloyon, or Mandaloya (named ahead),
an old hacienda of the Augustinians in Tondo province, in Luzon,
the morning-paper--La Republica Filipina--began publication with
the flag of the new-born republic in colors for heading,--the first
journal of the Tagal insurgents, that had so much to do in bringing
about the downfall of Spanish rule in the Philippines.
Before concluding this section on early presses, we may add the
references made by Retana to other Philippine prints than the ones
given in his Biblioteca. In a former work [19] he states that by
certain writers, whom he names, presses were said to have been
established on the isle of Luzon, viz: at Bacolor in 1619; Macabebe
in 1621; and Tayabas in 1703. Similarly, he cites two works, named by
the Franciscan antiquarian Huerta as having been printed at Manila
earlier than the Bugarin dictionary--the Devocion Tagalog in 1610;
and a Diccionario in 1613, both (according to Huerta) from the press
of Tomas Pinpin, the Tagal printer. Moreover, under the heading of
"Manila" and "Pinpin," Retana gives the dates of several still older
imprints than the Japanese dictionary of 1630, which in his Biblioteca
has been accorded the honor of senior of the Philippine press.
The reason for the omission of these titles in Retana's later
bibliography, that otherwise would seem unaccountable, is perhaps a
doubt as to their genuinity. But why he should fail to mention this
flaw in their line of ancestral title, is like many another perplexing
problem that the scholar is apt to encounter in his wanderings through
the shadowy, albeit delightful and fascinating realm of letters.
We now pass on to the question of the introduction of the press into
the Philippines.