Philippine Popular Culture:

Dimensions and Directions

The State of Research in
Philippine Popular Culture
Written by: DOREEN G. FERNANDEZ
Source: Philippine Studies 29 (1981): 26-44

Prepared by: Jef Francis Lim

Introduction:
• Popular culture in the Philippines is a concern of
recent awareness, recent exploration, and even more
recent definition.
• Consider the country whose popular culture is in
question:
• a Third World, developing nation; with many indigenous
ethnic groups still definitely unurbanized;
• with a long history of colonization that left behind at least two
immediately discernible layers of cultural influence, the
Spanish and the American,
• and a less discernible (being more deeply assimilated) one,
the Chinese;
• in a present socio-economic state that is still predominantly
agricultural, semi-feudal (many feudal structures, especially
in agricultural practices and related lifestyles continue, barely
changed), and neocolonial (dependent on foreign economies,
especially through the pervasive presence of multinational
corporations).
• Consider further: although the root word involved is populus, the
people, the meaning "popular culture" has taken on in this day is
not just "of the people" but more specifically of the mass, a mass
generally understood to be urban and industrialized.

• Applied to the Philippines and its peoples of different levels of

urbanization, with only a small percentage being urban and
industrial in the Western mode.
• Mass media-generated culture in the Philippines is what can be
properly called popular culture, and this is of recent vintage.

• The electronic media - film, radio, television, the large-circulation

press - were established in the Philippine scene early in the
twentieth century, but because of economics their sweep is still
largely and exclusively urban.
• Not all rural areas have cinemas nor are they reached by newspapers and
magazines; it is only since the transistor radio that the hinterlands are
touched by electronic media; and to date only relatively few households
are reached by television.
Early Studies on Phil. Popculture
• Research in the field is comparatively young, having
started out in the sixties as mass communications
research.

• Mass communication research, concerned with

content (content analyses) and effects on the
audience, is the earliest form of popular culture
research in the Philippines, although it is of course
not meant as such.
• In the middle seventies there came the literature scholars who
began to examine film, television, radio and comics as modes of
fiction and drama - in different media.

• Their concern was that of the cultural critic, and was derived from
that of the literary critic: in this new form, what cultural values
were being transmitted?
• Again: how well was the transmission being done? - to whom, with what
effect, and to what purpose?

• This concern was bred by the recognition that "serious" literature

- the novel, the short story, the poem, the play - was not reaching
the great majority, not even the urban masses, and certainly not
the rural masses.
• Even more urgently, since 1972 and the imposition of martial law,
there were few outlets for the short story and the poem, and only
one, Liwayway and its regional brethren, for the popular novel.

• Plays were hardly ever published except in university-based

publications and when performed, reached only those of the
immediate spatial community, the urban community, the school
community, the town, the barrio.
Popular Readings (Komiks) in the Phils.
• The first Filipino comic strip was "Kenkoy," which
first appeared in 1929, its main character a city
slicker through whom creator Antonio Velasquez
commented on "the foibles of Filipinos grappling
with the new manners and mores brought about by
urbanization”.

• It then consisted of four frames, used as a filler in

the popular weekly Liwayway, but eventually grew
to a full-page feature.
• By 1931 other comic strip characters joined slick-haired Kenkoy,
almost all of them modelled on American comics characters:
• Kulafu, who roamed the mountains of Luzon as Tarzan did Africa;
• Huapelo, the Chinese corner store owner (long a stock figure of fun in
Philippine life, fiction and drama),
• Saryong Albularyo, the barrio doctor whose last name meant quack;
• Goyo and Kikay, local counterparts of Maggie and Jigg,
• And so on through the years and the changing fashions to
eventually include today's superheroes, horror stories, science
fiction, preternatural creatures derived both from lower
Philippine mythology and from Western sources.
• And so there appear Dyesebel the siren;
• the flying Darna; the Medusa-like Valentina, characters from Philippine
folklore,
• otherworldly royalty and nobility out of the quatrains of the awit and
cordo, freaks of many persuasions like phantomanok (phantom and
rooster) and horse-bodied Petra,
• magical agents of good like Karina and her flying kariton (push cart),
historical figures, sports figures,
• and in a more realistic vein, people from daily life - martyred mothers
and drunken fathers and business executives and blue-collar workers.
• Since 1972 and Martial Law, the komiks have also been used by
government agencies to cany such developmental messages as the
Green Revolution (home vegetable gardens), housing programs,
and family planning.

• The content - the dreams, the hopes, the values, the vision of life,
the escape from reality (that suggests the reality escaped from),
the problems and their solutions, the total world view reflected in
the komiks - definitely makes the komiks popular culture.
• But it is not only content that makes komiks "of the people."
• It is also the fact that they have such a reach and grasp:
• At present (1981), there are fifty komiks-magazines published weekly in
the country with a combined circulation of more than two million copies.
• It is estimated that there are sixteen million regular readers of the
komiks from Aparri to Jolo. . . if one counts those who borrow or lend
their comics for a fee.

• For countless Filipinos, the komiks is perhaps the only reading fare
-a cheap, accessible substitute for more serious literature.
• Dr. Reyes sees the komiks as having taken on different roles:
• "purveyor of entertainment and moral lessons, disseminator of values
and attitudes, and even a source of practical knowledge on farming,
government policies, medicine and science."

• She also finds that although the form and distribution method is
popular, the underlying sensibility is very largely folk - note the
large amount of folk material - and it is on this meld of folk and
pop that the people's maximum receptivity to komiks rests.
Popular Films in the Phils.
• The first films shown in the Philippines were short
features called cinematrografo, usually presented
interspersed with zarzuela or vaudeville numbers.

• In 1909, two Americans, Yearsley and Gross,

produced the first two locally made feature films,
both on the life of Jose Rizal.
• The first full-length feature film, was Jose Nepomuceno's
"Dalagang Bukid," in 1919, which used the story and the star of
Herrnogenes Ilagan's zarzuela of the same name, the most
successful play of the type (it is said to have played at least 1000
times all around the islands).

• The first talking picture in the islands was made in 1932 by

Musser, and titled “Ang Aswang.”
• In 1924, there were 214 moviehouses all over the Philippines,
thirty-four in Manila, nineteen in Negros, seventeen in Rizal
province, sixteen in Pampanga, fourteen in Laguna, thirteen in
Tayabas, and five in Iloi1o.

• By 1939 the Philippine movie industry was fifth in the world in

the number of talkies produced.

• There were 345 sound theaters in the country, a 25 percent

increase over 1938, and eleven movie companies with a paid-up
capital of almost P430,OOO.
• From then the Philippine movie industry moved from the big-
studio syndrome to the present proliferation of small independent
producers, battling such obstacles as high taxes, (28 percent of
gross earnings).
• Of the films that fill the moviehouses, an average of 120 each year
(in the last five years) are Filipino, but these are generally the ones
that are mobbed, and whose stars - Dolphy, Vilma Santos, Nora
Aunor et al - have become folk heroes or, in the current lingo,
"superstars."

• Finally they move on to television, where they can practically live

forever.
• There are no film archives in the Philippines, no film libraries even
in the vaults of the former Big Four -
• Premiere Productions
• Sampaguita Pictures
• Lebran Pictures
• LVN Pictures

• And so the television run is of value to the film student or

historian as being the "living morgue" of the Filipino films that
survive.
• The content of these films has been the subject of much discussion
and criticism, especially since 1976, the year of the formation of
the Manunun ng Pelikulang Pilipino, the film critics' circle,
composed mostly of film buffs and writers from academe and
journalism.
• Bakya is the pejorative adjective a Filipino director in the late
fifties used to describe the films.

• The bakya, the wooden shoe worn by the lower classes, was used
to symbolize the unelevated taste reflected in the movies, with
their melodrama, weeping, fighting, formula romances, and
stereotyped characters.
• Arguments have flown back and forth about whether it is the
directors and producers rather than the audience who are bakya,
since they are the taste makers.

• About bakya being a mark of class distinction rather than of taste,

because the general audience has accepted good films when
presented in a vocabulary known to them.

• About the defects of the Filipino film being due to its having
derived its style mainly from folk drama, and its still having to
grapple with the medium.
Popular Radio Programs in the Phils.
• In June 1922, three 50-watt stations owned and
operated by an electrical supply company and
organized by an American, Henry Hermann, were
given temporary permits to set up stations in Manila
and Pasay.

• The stations were mainly for demonstration, and for

about two years provided mostly music for the few
who owned sets.
• They were replaced by a 100-watt station, KZKZ.
• By 1939 there were four stations owned by department stores,
which used them mainly to advertise their own merchandise.

• Advertising in radio by companies other than the owners began in

1932.

• Radio control laws were promulgated at about the same time that
these outside advertisements began to be accepted.
• During the Japanese occupation, all radio stations were closed,
except KZRH, which was renamed PIAM.

• Reception on shortwave was strictly forbidden, but many

receiving set owners risked their lives to listen to broadcasts of
"The Voice of Juan de la Cruz," the "Voice of Freedom" from
Corregidor (till May 1942) and the Voice of America.
• It was on these hidden radio sets that the underground newspapers
depended heavily for information on the war.
• But 1945, and the end of the occupation, heralded the real birth of
Philippine radio.
• Within five years after the war, there were thirty operating stations.

• In 1961, the largest broadcasting chain in the Philippines began to

be formed, first as the Bolinao Electronics Corporation, which
became then the Alto Broadcasting System, then the Chronicle
Broadcasting Network, which after Martial Law became the
Kanlaon Broadcasting System.
• Programming in the first post-war years was heavily American in
flavor, consisting mostly of canned US serials.

• DZRH initiated the first successful local shows:

• Philippine Manufacturing Company's "Purico Show," "Kwentong
Kapitbahay," the first soap opera in Pilipino, and "Kapitan Kidlat," about a
Philippine superhero.
• Republic Broadcasting System's DZBB, started by Bob Stewart on 1
March 1950, became famous for on-the-spot news coverage, and
for "Newscoop," a program on which controversial individuals
discussed "hot" subjects.
• From those early days and past landmarks like the famous
"Kuwentong Kutsero" of the fifties, a satire on Filipino manners,
mores, politics, and government which eventually moved on to
television; "Karni Naman," a situation comedy; and "Vicks' Variety
Show," the formula of Philippine radio developed.
• A survey made in 1969 by the Economic Monitor showed that 62
percent of a total of 6,347,000 households had radio sets, and
there were 1.5 million sets in the islands.
• In Rizal province, surrounding Manila, 50 percent of the homes had
radios, whereas 4 in Albay only 4 percent.
• In Manila, 87 percent of the households had radio sets.
• It was obvious that radios were massed in urban centers.
• The reach of radio changed in 1959, with the "transistor
revolution."

• President Carlos P. Garcia asked CARE to donate a few thousand

transistor radios for the barrios, explaining that these would
"combat subversive elements in the rural areas," most of which, of
course, did not, and still do not, have electricity.
• In the barrio, therefore, where the traditional - and often the only -
method of spreading or getting information was by word of mouth,
the transistor radio became a towering presence, bringing news of
the government and of the city and its problems; infusing pop
music into the domain of the kundiman; spreading, in effect,
popular culture beyond the urban sprawl and into the rural folk
realm.

• The two principal forms of popular culture conveyed by radio are

popular music (which will be dealt with later in this article) and
the radio soap opera.
Popular Magazines in the Phils.
• The first magazine of general circulation (vis-a-vis
those of special interest, for example, the religious
weeklies of the 19th century) in the Philippines was
probably The Philippine Magazine, published in
1905.

• It cannot quite be called "popular," however, since it

was in English, and therefore, not available to the
majority, especially at that time, when the teaching
of English had begun only four years earlier.
• Perhaps it is the Philippines Free Press which should be called the
first, because although it was in English, it was printed on cheap
newsprint and eventually, by the time it stopped publication in
1972, was indeed read by the majority of the English-speaking
Philippine public.
• Quite obviously, a real popular magazine would have to be in the
vernacular, and although there have been many shortlived
publications in this century, the popular magazine was definitely
Liwayway, started in 1923, and which by 1941 had a circulation
• of 89,000.

• With its sister publications Bisaya, in Cebuano Visayan;

Hiligaynon, in Ilongo Visayan; Bannawag, in Ilocano, and Bicolnon
in Bicol, Liwayway became the cornerstone of popular publishing
in the Philippines.
Popular Music in the Phils.
• Until as recently as seven years ago, pop music in
the Philippines was definitely American.

• There was popular music earlier - kundimans,

zarzuelas, love songs, street songs, children's
nonsense songs - and although some of these
actually found their way into records, they were not
sung on vaudeville stages or spun out on the
airlanes.
• Even the nationalism and activism of the late sixties and early
seventies did not change the steady diet of American pop, rock,
and Broadway on the airlanes, TV variety shows, and stage shows,
although they did arouse an interest in old Philippine songs which
were sometimes reworded to suit new conditions.
• In 1973, however, Joey Smith and his Juan de la Cruz band
experimented with what later came to be called Pinoy rock.

• The sound was heavy Western rock, but the lyrics were in Pilipino,
and pleaded for "our own music."

• Soon came a group called the Hot Dog with a slowed down,
melodious beat, and a hit with a title in Taglish, "Pers Lab" (lyrics
in Taglish and colloquial Tagalog).
• The Broadcast Media Council gave the spontaneous movement a
boost by requiring each radio station to play at least three Filipino
songs every hour (an indication of how much American music was
being played).

• Some radio stations responded by having all-Filipino programs,

and suddenly Pinoy pop had arrived, aided by prizes and contests
for performers, lyricists, etc. and especially by the Metro Manila
Pop Song Festival with its generous prizes for winning songs.
• At the present, the only thing truly Filipino about Pinoy rock is its
lyrics.

• The music is still heavily derivative of American pop, folk, and

rock, but the words have begun to be eloquent about Filipino life
and concerns; critical about society, people and mores; prophetic
even.

• Having found a steadier base for his identity, many a musician is

wandering further backwards, and exploring native rhythms and
instruments, with which to support the Filipino sensibility he
sings about.
• Serious scholarly attention is now being devoted to it by
musicologist and composer Felipe de Leon, Jr., music critic Anna
Leah de Leon, and singer and literature scholar Teresita G.
Maceda.

• These have spearheaded the formation of a circle of music critics

which aims to devote serious study to popular Filipino music, and
to disseminate this study through lectures and articles.
The Literature of Popular Culture
• The literature of popular culture consists mainly of:
a) Reportage and feature stories in daily newspapers and
weekly magazines.
b) Reviews of films, television shows, pop concerts or
performances, and very occasionally, radio programs.
c) Studies by mass communication undergraduates, thesis
writers, and scholars.
d) Studies by literature students and scholars.
e) Studies by the very few scholars (mainly originating
from the disciplines of literature and sociology) whose
consciousness has been awakened to popular culture
as a field of serious research.
• The problem with most of the above is that it is done in isolation,
without a clear perspective, and unlocated in a definite context.

• There is, in other words, no concerted effort to define the Filipino

through his popular culture, or to synthesize findings so as to
determine this culture's broad effects on him.
• No one can be blamed, since each is using the methods customary
to his discipline, and most have not even realized that the material
they are examining is that "new thing," popular culture.

• What, then, should be done?

• Where are the context, the perspective, and the methods to come
from?
Thank
you