Liwayway - History

History

The magazine had its beginning back 1922 when Don Ramon Roces, the eldest son of Ramon Roces, introduced it after the ill-fated Photo News had declined in the market.

Don Ramon Roces, a prominent man in the publishing business, first conceived Photo News. It was a magazine with its own style, carrying three languages (Spanish, Tagalog and English). The idea to have three languages in one magazine was to allow it to cater to all types of readers (Spanish and Spanish-speaking readers, English, American, and English-speaking readers, and Tagalog language and Filipino readers.

Unfortunately, the trilingual magazine was not well-received because some readers did not want to waste their money reading something they did not understand.

The sales of the magazine gradually declined and this emotionally affected Don Ramon Roces, but he did not give up. When he returned to Manila from Mindanao, he introduced another magazine patterned after Photo News. Unlike Photo News, the magazine concentrated, however, on making Tagalog (now Filipino) its medium, and outpouring support from the reading public was felt when its maiden issue was finally launched in the market.

The magazine was named Liwayway, meaning dawn. It made significant contribution to the field of literature when it introduced the popular masterpieces of great Filipino poets and writers like Jose Corazon de Jesus, Florentino Collanates, Julian Cruz Balmaceda, Cecilio Apostol Borromeo, Lope K. Santos, Inigo Ed Regalado, Romualdo Ramos, Francisco Lacsamana, Fausto Galauran and Pedrito Reyes, the son of Severino Reyes who later succeeded him as the editor of Liwayway.

Liwayway became even more popular in the following years and Don Ramon Roces decided to launch sister magazines. This gave birth to other vernacular magazines like Bisaya in 1932, Hiligaynon (Western Bisaya dialect) in 1934, Bikolano in 1935, and the Ilocano Bannawag in 1940. Liwayway Extra was also launched in 1936, a thicker monthly supplement of Liwayway.

In 1945 during the Liberation of Manila, the combined US and Philippine Commonwealth ground troops to fought by the Japanese forces around the battles in the city, the Japanese Imperial Army took over the supervision of Liwayway and named it Manila Simbunsiya. The Japanese military had hidden agenda: to use the magazine in their military campaign after occupying the Philippines. Later following that period, the Liwayway publication and its management was returned to Don Ramos Roces.

The publication was later sold to Hanz Menzi when old Don Ramon Roces retired from publishing business in 1965, but the sudden change in the management of the magazine had a sever impact on the magazine. Its sales declined until Menzi decided to sell the magazine to Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation.

The management of the Manila Bulletin aimed to preserve the legacy of Liwayway while reformatting the magazine with its modern digital technology. Thus, a new image of Liwayway was born.