Home⇛PCS Review⇛vol. 17 no. 1 (2025)

Indigenous Filipinos in the Manila Carnival (1908-1916): De/Centering Images of the Natives in Selected Newspaper Photographs in the Philippines

Moreal N. Camba

Discipline: Journalism

 

Abstract:

The Manila Carnival, established in 1908 under American colonial rule, served as a public spectacle designed to showcase the beauty and progress of the Philippines under American administration. It reinforced the fictions, fantasies, and illusions that supported the ideologies of Manifest Destiny, White Man’s Burden, and Benevolent Assimilation in the Philippines. However, it also became a space for negotiating and reconstructing Filipino identities. By reexamining selected photographs (and narratives) of the Manila Carnival in various newspapers from 1908-1916, this study will investigate how Filipinos were exaggeratedly represented as (a) exotic, savage, and uncivilized, (b) docile and imitative of the colonial government, and (c) subversive and belligerent. This study proposes a process of looking at photographs that is not solely focused on form and aesthetics but is actively engaged in de/centering socio-historical, political, economic, and other knowledges in constructing and reconstructing the image’s message. Guided by Alice Guillermo’s (2001) framework of visual analysis, it is then necessary to identify its “language” and likewise, its context. It explores the various subversions, negotiations, and compromises regarding race, class (and others) within the society to which it belongs. This process of looking and gazing at photographs utilizes the semiotic approach to denotative and connotative definitions proposed by Roland Barthes (1988). Likewise, the system of interpretation is anchored in the Indigenous concept of pahiwatig as articulated by Maggay (2002). This study values the act of revisiting and recreating memories.



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