A GLANCE AT SELECTED PHILIPPINE POLITICAL

CARICATURE IN ALFRED MCCOY’S PHILIPPINE CARTOONS:

Political Caricature of the American Era (1900-1941)

 Political cartoons and caricature are a rather
recent art form, which veered away from the
classical art by exaggerating human features and
pocking fun at its subjects. Such as genre and
technique became a part of the print media as a
form of social and political commentary, which
usually targets persons of power and authority.
Cartoons became an effective tool of publicizing
opinions through heavy use of symbolism, which
is different from a verbose written editorial and
opinion pieces.
The unique way that a caricature
represents opinion and captures the
audience imagination is reason enough for
historians to examine these political
cartoons. Commentaries in mass media
inevitably shape public opinion and such
kind of opinion is worthy of historical
examination.
 In his book Philippine Cartoons: political
Caricature of the American Era (1900-1941),
Alfred McCoy, together with Alfredo Roces,
compiled political cartoons published in
newspaper dailies and periodicals in the
aforementioned time period. For this part, we are
going to look at selected cartoons and explain the
content of each one.
PICTURE 1
The first example shown above was published in
the independent on May 20, 1916. The cartoon
shows a politician from Tondo, named Dr. Santos,
passing his crown to his brother-in-law, Dr.
Barcelona. A Filipino guy as depicted wearing
Salakot and Barong Tagalog was trying to stop
Santos, telling latter to stop giving Barcelona the
crown because it is not his to begin with.
PICTURE 2
 The second was also published by The
Independent on 16 June 1917. This was drawn
by Fernando Amorsolo and was aimed as a
commentary to the workings of Manila Police at
that period. Here, we see a Filipino child who stole
a skinny chicken because he had nothing to eat.
The police officer was relentlessly pursuing the said
child. A man wearing Salakot, labelled Juan de la
Cruz was grabbing he officer telling him to leave a
small-time pickpockets and thieves instead. He was
pointing to huge warehouses containing bulks of
rice, milk and grocery products.
PICTURE 3
 The third cartoon was a commentary on
the unprecedented cases of colorum
automobiles in the city streets. The
Philippine Free Press published this
commentary when fatal accidents
involving colorum vehicles and taxis
occurred too often already.
PICTURE 4
 This fourth cartoon depicts in a cinema.
A blown-up police officer saying that
couples are not allowed to neck and
make love in the theatre. Two youngster
looked horrified while an older seemed
amused.
 The next cartoon was published by The
Independent on 27 November 1915
 Here, we see the caricature of Uncle Sam riding a
chariot pulled by Filipinos wearing school
uniforms. The Filipino boys were carrying
Americans objects like baseball bats, whiskey,
and boxing gloves. McCoy, in his caption to the
said cartoon, says that this cartoon was based on
an event 1907 when William Howard Taft was
brought to the Manila pier riding a chariot pulled
by students of Liceo de Manila such was
condemned by nationalist at the time.
PICTURE 5
PICTURE 6
 The last cartoon was published by Lipang
Kalabawon 24 August 1907. In the
picture, we can see Uncle Sam rationing
porridge to the politicians and members of
the Progresista Party (sometimes known
as the Federalista Party) while members
of the Nationalista Party look on and wait
for their term. This cartoon depicts the
patronage of the United States being
coveted by politicians from either party.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

 The transition from the Spanish Colonial period

to the American Occupation period demonstrated
different strands of changes and shifts in culture,
society and politics. The Americans drastically
introduced democracy to the nascent nation and
the consequences were far from ideal. Aside from
this, it was also during the American period that
Filipinos were introduced to different
manifestation of modernity like healthcare,
modern transportation, and media.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

This ushered in a more open and free press.

The post-independent and the post-Filipino-
American period in the Philippines were
experienced differently by Filipinos coming
from different classes. The upper Principalia
class experienced economic prosperity with
the opening up of the Philippines economy
to the United States but the majority of the
poor Filipino remained poor, desperate, and
victims of state repression
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

 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
politics under the United States. In the arena of
politics, for example we see the price that
Filipinos paid for the democracy modelled after
the American. First, it seemed that Filipino
politician at that time did not understand well
enough the essence of democracy and the
accompanying democratic institutions and
processes.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

This can be seen in the rising dynastic policy in

Tondo as depicted in the cartoon published by
The Independent patronage also became
influential and powerful not only between clients
and patrons but also to the newly formed political
parties composed of the elite and the United
States, represented by Uncle Sam, provided dole
out for members of the Fediralista while the
Nationalista politicians looked on and waited for
their turns, thus the essence of competing political
parties to enforces to enforce choices among the
voters was cancelled out.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

The problems continuous up to the

present where politicians transfer from
one party to another depending on which
party was powerful in specific periods of
time.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

The transition from as Catholic-centered.

Spanish-Filipino society to an imperial
American-Assimilated one and its
complications, were also depicted in the
cartoons. One example is the unprecedented
increase of motorized vehicles in the city.
Automobiles become popular mode of
transportation in the city and led to the
emergence of taxis. However the laws and
policy implementation was mediocre.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

This resulted in the increasing colorum and

unlicensed vehicles transporting people around
the city. The rules governing the issuance of
driver’s licence was loose and traffic police
could not be bothered by rampant violations of
traffic rules. This is direct consequence of the
drastic urbanization of the Philippine society.
Another example is what McCoy called the “
sexual revolution” that occurred in the 1930s
young people as early as that period, disturbed
the Filipinos mind set by engaging daring
sexual activities in public spaces like cinemas.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

Here, we can see how that meeting point between

the conservative past and liberated future of the
Philippines.
ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL CARICATURE DURING THE AMERICAN PERIOD

Lastly, the cartoons also illustrated the conditions of

poor Filipinos in the Philippines now governed by
the United States. From the looks of it, nothing
much has changed. For example, a cartoon depicted
how police authorities oppress petty Filipino
criminals while turning blind eye on the hoarders
who monopolized goods in their huge warehouse
(presumably Chinese merchants). The other
cartoons depicts how American controlled Filipino
through seemingly harmless American objects. By
controlling their consciousness and mentality,
Americans got control and subjugate Filipinos
THANK YOU !!!
 PREPARED BY:

CHRISTIAN DAVE RONE

JED DUMO-OS
FRITS CARMELO