Writing 77: The Baguio Midland Courier
BAGUIO, Philippines – Baguio was always a newspaper town. Back in 1939, when the literacy rate of the country was below 50%, the city already had a weekly paper.
The Manila Daily Bulletin, the forerunner of the Manila Bulletin but then an American-owned paper, had a weekly supplement on Baguio called Baguio Bulletin.
Most of the contents were on the Americans in the city and some of the prominent Filipinos.
In the 1930s, Jane Noble Garrott opened a bookshop in the basement of a bank at Session Road. This attracted bored American housewives who started a book club and poetry readings.
Later some of the Japanese residents in the city (most of the fathers worked to build Kennon Road and decided to stay) started their haiku society at the Sayote Hotel in what is now Hotel Veniz and Sunshine Grocery at the foot of Abanao St.
This was probably where the young Hamadas (Sinai and Oseo) got their taste of literature.
Sinai would soon enroll at the University of the Philippines and finish journalism and law. He would also become the editor in chief of the Philippine Collegian.
He also wrote short stories that dumbfounded many Manila writers at that time. How can a Japanese-Igorot, who grew up in a place practically still governed by the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, write so prodigiously?
His 1932 short story, “Tanabata’s Wife,” was hailed by Franz Arcellana as the “The Finest Love Story Ever Written by a Filipino.”
And then, just like that, he returned to Baguio and became a people’s lawyer in 1939.
It was a hard choice for Sinai to defend his people. He would spend his early years defending drunks (People vs. Cayat, 1939) and tribal feuds.
And then, on April 28, 1947, Sinai and brother Oseo with half-sister Cecile Okubo started the Baguio Midland Courier.
Most of the stories were about the city’s reconstruction after World War II.
Cecile would hold on to the tradition of Baguio Bulletin with her gossip of the few remaining Americans. And when she took over from Sinai in the 1990s, she became a feisty environmental and cultural activist.
The paper would have journalist and folklorist Lawrence Wilson as contributing editor and Eduardo Masferre as assistant editor.
Wilson already published Igorot Mining Methods and Ilongot Life and Legends before joining Midland. Later, he compiled his columns in The Skyland of the Philippines and Tales from the Mountain Province.
Masferre would soon become a full-time photographer and is acknowledged as the “Father of Philippine Photography” for his documentary photographs of the Cordilleras.
And then there is the young Primitivo Mijares, who first apprenticed in Midland and soon became the “ear and mouth” of then-president Ferdinand E. Marcos.
Later he would have a change of heart and turn his back on the Marcoses, writing The Conjugal Dictatorship, which would cost him his life and that of his young son.
Midland would also bring out The Collected Stories of Sinai Hamada in 1975.
A.S. Florentino came out with his Piso Books for the National Bookstore and published The Woman Who Looked Out the Window: Selected Stories by Sinai Hamada in 1973.
Another side publication for the Baguio Midland Press was the collected columns of William Henry Scott.
Quite a roster of characters for the early Baguio Midland Courier.
The four pages of Midland would grow into eight and then 16 and 32 pages and more. On several issues, they would reach 100 pages.
The first issue had 100 copies. By the 1960s, they reached 3,600 copies.
The greatest achievement for Midland was that it would become the longest newspaper to publish continuously.
It was published without fail from April 1949 till July 21, 2024.
This constancy was propelled by what local observers knew as the “Sunday habit.”
Most of the buyers of Midland were said to be those who attended the Sunday masses and the promenaders of Session Road.
They were said to be either the old people who would buy Midland to look at the carefully laid-out obituaries of their friends and neighbors, people out to look for jobs and transient spaces, and children of oldtimers.
Also add those who genuinely care about the city and had to know the ins-and-outs, as one of the column titles went.
These readers are creatures of habit, that is why the column of former fiscal Benny Carantes was reprinted three years after he died.
But some said that Midland actually stopped printing.
Those who researched on the microfiche of Midland would say that there were missing issues from September 24 and 31, 1972.
According to former Midland editor in chief March Fianza, Sinai was among those called to Camp Dangwa right after the declaration of Martial Law on September 21, 1972. Sinai was not detained because Ben Palispis agreed to have him under his custody.
But, even then, Fianza was told by those in the know that Midland was able to print out 250 copies, mostly for advertisers, courts, and other interested parties. He said that Sinai secretly kept his copies but failed to give them to their archive.
Another time that Midland almost did not come out was during the July 16, 1990, earthquake. That was a Monday and the whole city was crippled even after a week.
Because it was “an act of God,” the double issue that came out on July 30, 1990, was considered a continuation of the July 15, 1990, issue.
Another tradition that Midland had was the “Nominations of the Year.” It was a feature that came out at the start of the year with serious and funny nominations coming mostly from readers.
Finding who made it to the list made the New Year’s issue their perennial bestseller.
It started in 1948 with “Highlights of the Year.”
The 1949 edition had Major Bado Dangwa as “Man of the Year” and Mrs. Gene O. de Guia as “Sweetheart of the Year.”
The “Question of the Year” in 1949 was, “What holds that strapless gown up?”
From now until January 5, 2025, the “Questions of the Year” would be “Why did we allow this to happen, and what do we do now?”
These are the questions we would not easily find the answers to. – Rappler.com