The Spanish introduced printing in the Philippines in 1593, modeled after Chinese xylography, or woodblock printing, and transitioning soon after to typography. Printing was spearheaded by the Catholic religious orders (Augustinian, Franciscan, Jesuit, and Dominican), who each owned and operated a printing press in the Philippines. Colonial policy dictated that before being printed and sold, books had to receive approval from the Bishop and Audiencia, the highest tribunal of justice. Thus, books were heavily censored, monopolized, and regulated by the Spanish.

The period between 1593 and 1748 was the most prolific for printing in early colonial Philippines, witnessing eighty- one publications of religious texts, language books, and historical accounts. These books served the purpose of the dissemination of the Catholic religion. Religious texts, such as catechisms and confessionals, served as manual guides for preaching and performing sacraments. Doctrina Christiana, the first book printed in the Philippines in 1593, was considered a vital handbook for the Spanish friars. Not surprisingly, similar Doctrinas were also the first books published by the Spanish in the New World, 1539 in Mexico and 1584 in Peru.

Instrumental to Spanish missionary work was the study of the indigenous language. Of the eighty-one books printed between 1593 and 1648, thirty five were grammar books and dictionaries, the majority of which were in Tagalog. The Spanish chose to learn the native language for two reasons. First, it was more practical for dozens of missionaries to learn the native language than for thousands of Filipinos to learn Spanish. Missionaries were few in number and resources for teaching the natives Spanish were limited. Second, the Spanish withheld from giving the Filipinos a common national language that could potentially give rise to a sense of nationalism, effectively succeeding to “divide and conquer” the archipelago.

Rice paper was the main paper in the Philippines until 1830. It was used for everything, from books and letters to cigarettes. Rice paper is extremely brittle, exacerbated by the fact that it was often coated with alum which served to whiten and smooth the paper, but made it susceptible to moisture and discoloration.

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Doctrina Christiana. The first book printed in the Philippines, Manila, 1593. A facsimile of the copy in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection. With an Introduction by Edwin Wolf. Washington: Library of Congress, 1947.

Doctrina Christiana—Spanish for “Christian Doctrine” or “The Teachings of Christianity”—is believed to be the first book printed in the Philippines in 1593. The present book is a faithful facsimile of the original, of which only one copy is known to exist in the world today, located in the Library of Congress. The present text contains the same contents and has the same dimensions as the original text, though the latter was unbound and made of mulberry paper.

This 74-page text is written in Castilian, Tagalog transliterated into the Roman alphabet, and Tagalog in the native Baybayin characters. The first few pages introduce the Spanish and Tagalog syllabaries. The rest of the contents are prayers and religious doctrine: the Pater Noster (“Our Father”), the Ave Maria (“Hail Mary”), the Credo (“Apostle’s Creed”), the Salve Regina (“Hail Holy Queen”), the Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the Commandments of the Holy Church, the Sacraments of the Holy Church, the Seven Mortal Sins, the Fourteen Works of Charity, Confession, and Catechism. (JHM)

Mentrida, Alonso de. Ritual para administrar los sanctos sacramentos sacado casi todo del Ritual romano. Manila, Philippines, 1630.

This text, whose title roughly translates to “Rituals for the Administration of the Sacred Sacraments of the Roman Ritual,” contains instructions and prayers involved in conducting religious sacraments. Published in 1630 in Manila by Augustinian priest Alonso de Mentrida, its purpose was for “the use of the ministers of his order in these Philippine islands.” Written in Spanish and Latin, the book is printed on rice paper and bound in contemporary vellum or animal skin. The title page displays the Augustinian coat of arms. The manuscript pages are prayers written in Latin which were written on the fly leaves and became detached.

The printer of Ritual para administrar los sanctos sacramentos was Tomas Pinpin, the first Filipino printer and celebrated as the father of Filipino printers. Very little is known of his life, for his hometown was burnt down by Dutch invaders. Some historians suggest that Pinpin learned the art of printing from Juan de Vera, the Chinese printer of the Doctrina Christiana. (JHM)

Gift of Mrs. George Parker Winship.

Francisco de San Jose. Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Tagala. Bataan, Philippines: En el Partido de Bataan, Por Thomas Pinpin Tagalo, 1610.

Many grammar books and dictionaries were published in the early Spanish colonial period, but none was more influential than Francisco Blancas de San Jose’s Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Tagala (“Art and Rules of the Tagalog Language”). First published in 1610, it was reprinted in a second edition in 1752 and a third edition in 1832. Even today, it is regarded as the most comprehensive codification of the Tagalog language. The printer of the Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Tagala was, again, Tomas Pinpin.

Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Tagala is written in Latin, Spanish, and Tagalog and it is printed on rice paper. The book is organized into chapters on number, nouns, adjectives, voice, verbs, and so on. Verbs are classified into the tenses: present, future, accusative, ablative, imperative, etc. The systematic division of Tagalog into a Latin grammatical framework and the lack of Tagalog terms to describe the language make clear the author’s utilitarian and western-oriented approach. (JHM)

Acquired with the assistance of the Harper fund.