(Third of Four Parts)
CEBU, Philippines - Sometime in 1927, Paul Gullas embarked on an unprecedented move. He opened the ownership of The FREEMAN to the public, each share costing ten pesos (P10.000) each. The share also entitled the holder to a three-year free subscription to the paper. Since a one-year subscription was worth five pesos, the shareholder already gained a one-year free subscription by merely buying stocks of The FREEMAN.
As it turned out, Paul and a provincial government official retained controlling interest of the stocks in 1929. Gullas with the other share-holders’ concurrence, stopped selling more stocks to the public.
In the history of local publishing, this public ownership of stocks has remained unduplicated.
Throughout its existence, from 1919 to 1935 (?), The Freeman experienced financial low and high points. Paul, however, did not depend upon its profits for subsistence, deriving income mainly from his legal career.
Instead, he used the paper’s modest profits to help some students defray their school expenses. Among these students was Eustaquio Rosal, a Mandauehanon.
Rosal studied at Visayan Institute and did odd jobs for Paul. At one time, he kept the records of the paper’s shares and shareholders. Now and then, he contributed stories, e.g., his “Karnero Apan Irong Ihalas” which appeared in the paper’s issue of Jan. 23, 1931. Rosal later served as public school teacher, passed the bar in 1928, and was appointed mayor of Mandaue soon after the liberation. Practising lawyer and USC professor Nelson Rosal is his son.
In the editorial of the maiden issue, Gullas spelled out the objectives of the paper. He wrote: “We invite our readers and the public, by honest and constructive criticisms, to labor with us in working for clean and efficient government, for economic freedom, and last and most important of all, for the development of that type of sturdy, honest and God-fearing citizen who forms the bulwark of democracy.”
We shall see below that these three main objectives will be pursued in the contents of The FREEMAN in subsequent years.
New Dissemination
International news published by The FREEMAN at the time mainly concerned events in the United States, as could be expected from the communication facilities then available and from the prevailing interest of the leading citizens.
Regional news usually narrated events in other Central Visayan provinces, and now and then included those in Eastern Visayas (Leyte) and Northern Mindanao. A few of the advertisers also came from these places.
Most of the news (and advertisements) expectedly dealt with happenings in Cebu province and its capital town where important actions and decisions were taken in the economic religious, social and political fields.
Compared with present-day practices, some The FREEMAN articles could not be classified as straight news but rather as “news with commentary,” where the reader easily found the news content and the subsequent opinion or comment of the writer.
Commentaries
Besides the “news” and the “news with commentary”, there were also straight commentaries. These were usually political in them and concerned the actuations of those in government service.
This practice was prevalent among newspaper in those decades. For example, Remegio Kabatino’s article in Bag-ong Kusog, February 21, 1919, entitled “Bili sa Mantalaan” cited newspapers as watchdogs for corruption and abuses of those in government. Similarly, Felicisimo Vergara’s prize-winning oratorical piece “Bili sa Mantalaan,” which appeared in the Bag-ong Kusog issue of September 20, 1922 underscored the role of newsmen to oversee the conduct of public officials.
The same theme was among the subjects treated by Elpidio S. Rama, using the pseudonym ESAMAR, in his open letter “Ang Sakit sa Mantalaan,” which came out in Bag-ong Kusog on September 10, 1919. Enumerated among the “diseases” of newspaper were the failure to expose graft and corruption in government, a lack of criticisms on government overspending and silence on the existence of illegal business tolerated by the authorities like opium-traffic.
Thus, most readers in these decades expected newspapers and magazines to give political commentaries; many would be surprised if a paper lacked such fare. The FREEMAN, therefore, was merely following a journalistic trend in publishing regular commentaries and articles on political issues.
We should also add that in the history of pre-war Cebu, a close relationship existed between politicians and newspapermen. Some newspapermen later entered politics, or some politicians published newspapers.
Paulino Gullas was later elected congressman for the second district of Cebu in 1928, and re-elected in 1934, as one of Cebu’s 14 delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
Did The FREEMAN help in building up Gullas’ political status? Jose V. Gutang, a Cebuano journalist (uncle of the present sports editor of Cebu Daily Times), writing in Bag-ong Kusog. September 1936, identified The FREEMAN as “usa sa mga mantalaan nga nakapasidungog sa ilang pangulo ug magtutukod.”
In his view, the question posed above is to be answered affirmatively; the paper helped a lot in building up Gullas” political stock by providing exposure to his political ideas and popularizing the same.
Gullas was aware, however, that at that time the “air is charged with political propaganda and great and near great politics aboud everywhere like festering dungheaps.”
But politics is not everything in society, Gullas correctly observed, and The Freeman dealt with other matters as well, among them, commerce.
“It is now high time for the politician to rest his case, and for the merchant – a friend of all and the enemy of none; stronger nowhere and at home everywhere – to make his plea for better commercial facilities, for more improved business conditions and to make ours a more business-like government.”
Consequently, news and opinion regarding trade and commerce readily found space in The FREEMAN. These items were also intended to help the Filipinos attain economic freedom, the newspaper’s second objective.