Philippine Cartoons

Alfred McCoy

September 29
2020
Reading In Philippine History
Alfred McCoy Backgrounds

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 Biography of the Author
• Name: Alfred William McCoy
• Born: June 08, 1945, in Concord, Massachusetts (U.S)
• Nationality: American
• Occupation: Educator

Degrees
Alfred McCoy • Bachelor of Arts in European History from Columbia
University in 1968
• Master of Arts in Asian Studies from the University of
California, Berkeley in 1969
• Doctor of Philosophy in Southeast Asian History
from Yale University in 1977

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Born to Alfred Mudge McCoy, Jr. and Margarita Piel, a noted urban planner, educator, and
descendant of the originators of Piels Beer, McCoy graduated from the Kent School in 1964,
where he earned varsity letters in football, rowing, and wrestling.[2] He earned a Bachelor of
Arts in European History from Columbia University in 1968, a Master of Arts in Asian Studies
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Southeast
Asian History from Yale University in 1977. His dissertation, advised by Harold C. Conklin was
entitled Yloilo: Factional Conflict in a Colonial Economy, Iloilo Province, Philippines, 1937-1955,
which examined the region of Iloilo.
McCoy began his teaching career as a lecturer at Yale, while he was still a doctoral student (1976-
1977). He spent the next academic year as a research fellow at the Australian National
University. McCoy remained in Australia at the University of New South Wales as a lecturer
(1978-1981), senior lecturer (1981-1985), and was eventually promoted to associate professor
(1985-1989). He returned to the United States in 1989 as a full professor of history at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has since spent his career. McCoy has been
given two endowed chairs during his tenure: J.R.W. Smail (2004-2015) and Fred Harvey
Harrington (2015-present).

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• On June 2, 1972, while studying at Yale, McCoy testified before the United States Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of which
Senator William Proxmire was chairman, and accused American government officials, such as G.
McMurtrie Godley and Nelson G. Gross, of covering up drug trafficking in Southeast Asia. Soon
after, McCoy reaffirmed these beliefs in a letter to Congressman Les Aspin.
• McCoy allegedly uncovered drug trafficking methods for heroin and opium throughout Southeast
Asia and to American troops stationed there by high-ranking government officials:
Commander Ouane Rattikone and General Vang Pao (Laos); and President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and
General Đăng Văn Quang (Vietnam). McCoy also cited their ties with the Mafia, namely a visit
to Saigon in 1968 by Santo Trafficante Jr.. Senator Gale W. McGee dismissed the allegations and
accused McCoy of McCarthyism, which was immediately rebutted. Senator Proxmire requested
additional evidence and documentation to which McCoy responded his forthcoming book on the
topic would serve as such. In that same year, McCoy's book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia,
was published by Harper and Row. He restated that the Central Intelligence Agency was
knowingly involved in the trade of heroin in the Golden Triangle.

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 Major publication
• Laos: War and Revolution. Edited with Nina S. • Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the
Adams. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Modern American State. Madison: University of
• The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA Wisconsin Press, 2009.
Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. New
York: Harper & Row, 1972. • An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the
• Priests on Trial: Father Gore and Father O'Brien Philippines. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Caught in the Crossfire Between Dictatorship and Press, 2009.
Revolution. New York: Penguin Books, 1984. • Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of
• Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Coercive Interrogation. Madison: University of
Military Academy. New Haven: Yale University Wisconsin Press, 2012.
Press, 1999.
• A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the • Endless Empire: Spain’s Retreat, Europe’s Eclipse,
Cold War to the War on Terror. New America’s Decline. Madison: University of
York: Metropolitan Books, 2006. Wisconsin Press, 2012.
• Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the • Beer of Broadway Fame: The Piel Family and Their
Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Brooklyn Brewery. SUNY Press, 2016.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.
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 Contextual Analysis
The Caricature made by Alfred McCoy is a prewar political cartoons are an evocative
record of a half-forgotten history. The scandals, struggles and social changes of the
American colonial period gain an immediacy in these graphic images that eludes even the
most eloquent historical prose, For those who drew and published them, these cartoons
were simultaneously a mirror of their society's colonial conditiony an act Of protest, and a
weapon in the struggle for social reform.

When Americans found a Filipino publication offensive, they could use the strong libel or
sedition laws to imprison editors, actors and authors. Although the court sentences of the
early American period seem, in retrospect, harsh, the general climate was still sufficiently
liberal to allow a flowering of the Philippine press.

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 Contextual Analysis
Filipinos shaped many of the institutions and cultural characteristics which are still central
to life in the modern republic. Under U .S. colonial tutelage, the Philippines experienced a
process of Americanization and modernization that has left a lasting legacy.
The brutal American conquest of their Republic stoked the outrage of Filipino nationalists,
but the relatively liberal US. censorship laws after the end of military rule in 1901 provided
an outlet for their protest.

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 Content Analysis
IMAGES OF CHANGING NATION -1900-41 Philippine political cartoons gained full
expression during the American era. Filipino artists recorded national attitudes toward the
coming of the Americans as well as the changing mores and times. While the 377 cartoons
compiled in this book speak for themselves, historian Alfred McCoy’s extensive research in
Philippine and American archives provides a comprehensive background not only to the
cartoons but to the turbulent period as well. The scandals, struggles and social changes of
the American colonial period gain an immediacy in these graphic images that eludes even
the most eloquent historical prose, For those who drew and published them, these cartoons
were simultaneously a mirror of their society's colonial condition an act Of protest, and a
weapon in the struggle for social reform. The four decades of American colonial rule were a
formative period in Philippine history. Under a U.S. colonialism that was simultaneously
brutal and beneficent, grasping and generous, the Philippines moved forward from an
authoritarian Spanish regime to autonomy and independence. In the process, Filipinos
shaped many of the institutions and cultural characteristics which are still central to life in
the modern republic. Under U .S. colonial tutelage, the Philippines experienced a process of
Americanization and modernization that has left a lasting legacy.
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Images Of A Changing Nation
Images Of A Changing Nation

. Based on investigations by T. M. Kalaw and editor Fernando

Ma. Guerrero, El Renacimiento reported that the Constabulary
had confined 1,000 residents of Bacoors Cavite into a
compound only 400 meters square
The Cartoons

The hollow monumental grandeur combined with an Americanized

urban culture to give Manila a rather tawdry air When viewed through
the cartoonist's angry eye. Suppressed under Spanish rule, prostitution
boomed under the liberal American regime and city officials and their
police soon learned to profit from a selective tolerance. Similarly, as
shown in the January 1908 cartoon on page 15, gambling boomed and
spawned systematic police and political corruption. Regular visits by the
U.S. Navy fostered a campfollower culture of prostitutes, bar girls and
bailarinas
 The Cartoons

American influence brought some subtle social changes as

well. The annual influx of legislators and their cronies gave
Manila a political high life of high-roller gambling and gossip.
The sudden increase in schools and colleges made youth a
distinct social class, Their elders suddenly became concerned
about the morality and political wisdom of the young.
 With the arrogance of the conqueror, for example, American soldiers and
sailors strutted about Manila's streets. From these slices Of street life the
cartoonists could often make a Sharp political point masquerading as innocent
social commentary.
Memories of the Visit (left): Grotesque figures with great noses, the American
sailors poured into Manila off the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in November 1908, crowding
into bars and brothels, a Stream of shoeshine boys and calesa drivers following in
their wake. The cartoonist here shows one shoeshine boy asking another: "What
did we profit from the PI 00,000 which the sailors visiting here are supposed to
have spent?" The other answers: "Nothing. They left us the dirt from their shoes.
"
The cartoon's satire operates on at least three levels. The criticism of the
sailors s spending expresses a growing Filipino objection to the jarring economic
and social consequences Of the American military presence, Reacting to Filipino
complaints about the many disreputables among the American veterans who had
remained in the provinces, usually living off a Filipina wife and engaging in
drunken brawls, the Philippine Commission passed a law aimed at weeding out
the vagrant veterans.
Why the "Aparcero" Rebels
(The Independent, 14 January 1922)
A NEW WRINKLE IN THE ART OF THIEVING

THE Agricultural assembly of 1915 was

the effort by Filipino farmers to lobby of
government support on collective, national
basis. Meeting in Manila is called for a number
of conssisions, most importantly the creation of
national bank to serve agriculture. Since
existing banks would not lend to farmers unless
they had land titles, which most did not, they
were force to barrow from Chinese Brokers or
users who had high Interest and paid low
prices.
(LiPag
 Conclusion
Modern art form that turned away from classical art by exaggerating human features and prodding fun at its subjects. It is
also known as Editorial Cartoon that contain a commentary that express the artist opinion toward certain issues. This art
became part of the print media as a form of political and social commentary that usually pin point the person’s power and
authority. It is a unique way to present ideas and capture the audience or readers’ imagination.

THE MANILA: THE CORRUPTION OF A CITY- NATIONALISM WAS THE IDEOLOGY of the Manila press, then the
city was its reality. The editors, artists and writers all lived and worked in Manila, and so expressed their frustrations with
its discomforts and decadence in some of the angriest cartoons of the American period (1899-1941). Costumes and
characters have changed in the half century since their publication, but Manila's constant urban problems — poverty,
corruption and prostitution — give these cartoons an almost timeless quality.
THE DISTANT PROVINCES- THE PROVINCES BEGAN at Manila's door-step, but for the city's press they were a world
apart. The editors, writers and cartoonists all lived in Manila and made the press a chronicle of urban life. The cartoons are
then a remarkably detailed and precise record ofthe city's changing face — fashion, morality, politics, transport, and
commerce.
If Manila was reality, then the provinces became fantasy. Coverage of provincial developments was infrequent and
uneven. Even this limited coverage was biased towards the fantastic, the catastrophic and absurd.
THE CALAMITY OF THE MOMENT- The cartoon also attacks the farmer's other enemies. Beginning in 1888, rinderpest, a
fatal cattle disease, spread until draft animals were in critically short supply by the century's turn.

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Thank You!
OCEANA SECTION

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