Historians deal with the past, this makes writing a New Year column difficult. We all want to throw 2024 in the dustbin of history and look forward to a better 2025. I looked up the Inquirer headline for Jan. 1, 2024, “ASEAN MINISTERS WORRY OVER RISING SEA TENSIONS.” Not much has changed since. Other front-page stories were on a fireworks festival at SM City Clark. A ”praise release” from an advertiser. Another story was on requiring Senate approval or regulation of any future pandemic policy, a reaction to the oppressive conditions we endured under Duterte. Finally, there was a story on the obstacles faced by Filipino athletes hoping to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics. One need not be an oracle like Madam Auring to predict that many things in the Philippines remain the same as last year. This is not to say that history repeats itself, but that human nature responds to the challenges of the times in similar ways.
I planned to write about the Philippines a century ago, but could not find an online archive that had at least one Philippine newspaper for Jan. 1, 1925. Surely physical or microfilm copies are available at the National Library, at the University of the Philippines Main Library, the Ateneo Rizal Library, or the Lopez Museum and Library, so I will prepare for next year by digging up the Philippine newspapers for Jan. 1, 1926. I searched online for a Philippine newspaper dated Jan. 1, 1925.
I did find an online copy of the Tribune for Jan. 1, 1942. The headline read “ENEMY’S ADVANCE PRESSED.” Japanese forces were reported in Baliuag in the north, while in the south, the enemy had entered San Pablo and was making their way to Calauan. Douglas MacArthur was reported to have narrowly escaped death during an enemy air attack on Bataan while he was on tour. Manila was isolated due to the cut in communications and the train service north and south. One front-page story began with this sentence: “The crimson glow of huge fires was Manila’s New Year illumination last night as in several directions from the heart of the city dynamite blasts set ablaze supplies and buildings in oil depots and military area.”
When news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached Manila some weeks earlier, many people thought that it would be a short war and that the United States would put Japan in its place. In the New Year of 1942, the situation was grim. Michael J. O’Doherty, archbishop of Manila, declared a day of prayer throughout the city from midnight of Dec. 31, 1941, to midnight of Jan. 1, 1942.
He wrote: “Peace in the Lord. In these days of sorrow and tribulation in our dear Philippines, I speak to you from a heart heavy with the weight of your woe. What better can we do in the present trying time than to turn our hearts and minds to God and with earnest, humble prayer beseech Him, the common Father of us all, to come to our aid…”
A proposal for prices of essential commodities was presented to the Emergency Control Administration for approval. Due to inflation, the prices seem cheap compared to those in 2024, but paper banknotes and coins made of proper metals then could buy more than today’s polymer banknotes and mock metal coins. First class rice cost P6.40 per cavan, second class rice cost P6.20. “Elon-elon” (whatever rice that is) cost P8, first class; and P7.80, second class. Fresh fish per kilo cost: prawns, P1.30; lapu-lapu, P0.80; apahap, P0.75; tanguingue, P0.70; bangus, P0.50; and shrimps, P0.25. Dried fish: tunsoy and tinapa, P0.70 for a hundred; and tuyo, P0.50. Eggs: balut, P5 per 100; duck eggs and salted eggs, P4; chicken eggs, P3.50. Bananas per 100: lakatan, P0.90; buñgulan, P0.65; latundan and saba, P0.50. Remember, one of the unsung heroines of the war was Maria Y. Orosa who developed food from Philippine sources that kept people alive in times of want: Soyalac (drink from soybeans), Darak, (rice bran cookies that fought beri-beri), and most famous of all, banana ketchup.
An interesting bit of foreign news was the German proposal to dismantle the Eiffel Tower in Paris for scrap metal. The iconic steel tower, with six other buildings, was sentenced to demolition having been declared by the enemy as having “at present no more artistic or historical value.” There were a number of unusual advertisements compared with those of the prewar or “Pistaym” (peace time) period. For example, a first aid station for Escolta was established in the showroom of the Manila Gas Corp., Fernandez Building, 138 T. Pinpin. This was maintained by the Botica Boie and available only during office hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) There was an ad for “Mentholatum” that was the wartime equivalent of today’s Vick’s Vaporub or White Flower.
Browsing through the four pages of the Tribune for Jan. 1, 1942 reminded me of my father who always took bad news with grace. Once when I was ranting about the political situation, traffic, and bad Globe customer service, he shut me up by declaring, “You don’t know how lucky you are. Everything you complain about is nothing. My generation survived the war.” Perspective does make life more bearable. A new year is a time to count one’s blessings, to see life as a gift against our petty misfortunes.
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