Under Spanish government there was a land Telegraph Service from Manila to all civilized parts of Luzon Island—also in Panay Island from Cápiz to Yloilo, and in Cebú Island from the city of Cebú across the Island and up the west coast as far north as Tuburan. There was a land-line from Manila to Bolinao (Zambales), from which point a submarine cable was laid in April, 1880, by the Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company, Ltd., whereby Manila was placed in direct telegraphic communication with the rest of the world. For this service the Spanish Government paid the company ₱4,000 a month for a period of 10 years, which expired in June, 1890. In April, 1898, the same company detached the cable from Bolinao and carried it on to Manila in the s.s. Sherard Osborn, 207 nautical miles having been added to the cable for the purpose. In return for this service the Spanish Government gave the company certain exclusive rights and valuable concessions. In May, 1898, the American Admiral Dewey ordered the Manila-Hong-Kong cable to be cut, but the connection was made good again after the Preliminaries of Peace with Spain were signed (August 12, 1898). Cable communication was suspended, therefore, from May 2 until August 21 of that year.
In 1897 another submarine cable was laid by the above company, under contract with the Spanish Government, connecting Manila with the Southern Islands of Panay and Cebú (Tuburan). The Manila-Panay cable was also cut by order of Admiral Dewey (May 23, 1898), but after August 12, under an arrangement made between the American and Spanish Governments, it was re-opened on a neutral basis, and the companyʼs own staff worked it direct with the Manila public, instead of through the medium of Spanish officials.
Since the American occupation a new cable connecting the Islands with the United States has been laid (opened July 4, 1903), whilst a network of submarine and land-wires has been established throughout the Archipelago.
Owing to their geographical position, none of the Philippine ports are on the line of the regular mail and passenger steamers en route elsewhere; hence, unlike Hong-Kong, Singapore, and other Eastern ports, there is little profit to be derived from a cosmopolitan floating population. Due, probably, to the tedious Customs regulations—the obligation of every person to procure, and carry on his person, a document of identification—the requirement of a passport to enter the Islands, and complicated formalities to recover it on leaving—the absence of railroads and hotels in the interior and the difficulties of travelling—this Colony, during the Spanish régime, was apparently outside the region of tourists and “globe-trotters.” Indeed the Philippine Archipelago formed an isolated settlement in the Far East which traders or pleasure-seekers rarely visited en passant to explore and reveal to the world its natural wealth and beauty. It was a Colony comparatively so little known that, forty years ago, fairly educated people in England used to refer to it as “The Manillas,” whilst up to the end of Spanish rule old residents, on visiting Singapore and Hong-Kong, were often highly amused by the extravagant notions which prevailed, even there, concerning the Philippines. But the regulations above referred to were an advantage to the respectable resident, for they had the desirable effect of excluding many of those nondescript wanderers and social outcasts who invade other colonies.
Since the Revolution there has been a large influx of American tourists to the Islands, arriving in the army-transports, passage free, to see “the new possession,” as the Archipelago is popularly called in the United States.
[1] According to Zúñiga (“Hist. de Philipinas”), the ancient inhabitants of Luzon Island had a kind of shell-money—the Siguey shell. Siguey shells are so plentiful at the present day that they are used by children to play at Sunca.
[2] Situado is not literally “Subsidy,” but it was tantamount to that.