20th Century Western Visayan Millenarian Representations: The Case of “Emperor” Flor Intrencherado in the Local Press, 1925-1929
Authors: Ravena Kyle Philip 
Published: October 2022

From 1925-1929, the popular social movement of "Emperor" Flor Intrencherado in Western Visayas gained notoriety within the press local. The Iloilo-based local newspaper, the Makinaugalingon, extensively covered the movement in their press release articles. The newspaper, unsurprisingly, recreated a picture of Intrencherado and his followers in a language of ridicule, dismissing the movement and identifying its leader as a lunatic and insane despite the locality of the press. This, in turn, marginalized the movement, its goals, and objectives, as well as the leader, "Emperor" Flor Intrencherado. The goal of this study is to present, review, and analyze the different representations the local press created with the “infamous” peasant movement and give the context in which similar social movements could be understood.
References
Primary Materials
El Tiempo. Microfilm. Information Services and Instruction Section, University of the Philippines Main Library. Quezon City. The issue used: August 8, 1907
Makinaugalingon. Microfilm. Information Services and Instruction Section, University of the Philippines Main Library. Quezon City. Various Issues used.
Manila Times. Microfilm. Information Services and Instruction Section, University of the Philippines Main Library. Quezon City. Various Issues used.
Philippines Free Press. Microfilm. Information Services and Instruction Section, University of the Philippines Main Library. Quezon City. Various Issues used.
Works Cited
Acevedo, Christian George. “Rosendo Mejica, the Golden Age of the Hiligaynon Literature and the Vernacularization of Jose Rizal’s Novels.” AGATHOS: An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences 11, no. 2 (2020): 107–18.
Adamkiewicz, Andrei. “The Legitimating Aspects of Colonial Discourse.” In Culture and Texts: Representations of Philippine Society, edited by Raul Pertierra and Eduardo Ugarte, 155-176. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1994.
Aguilar, Filomeno. Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.
Aguilar, Filomeno Jr. “Masonic Myths and Revolutionary Feats in Negros Occidental.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 28, no. 2 (September 1997): 285–300.
Alayon, John Richard. “The Empire of Flor Yntrencherado: A Study of Anti-Colonial Resistance.” Undergraduate Research, University of the Philippines in the Visayas, 1999.
Bankoff, Greg. "Bandits, Banditry, and Landscapes of Crime in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 29, no. 2 (September 1998): 319–39.
Baumgartner, Joseph. "Newspapers as Historical Sources." Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 9, no. 3 (September 1981): 256–58.
Borrinaga, George Emmanuel. “Seven Churches: The Pulahan Movement in Leyte, 1902-1907.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 43, no. 1/2 (2015): 1–139.
Braünlein, Peter. "Who Defines 'the Popular'? Post-Colonial Discourses on National Identity and Popular Christianity in the Philippines." In Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe, edited by Judith Schlehe and Evamaria Sandkühler, 75–111. History in Popular Cultures. Bielefeld, 2014.
Constantino, Renato. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Quezon City: Tala Publications Inc., 1975.
Fernandez, Doreen. “The Philippine Press System: 1811-1989.” Philippine Studies 37, no. 3 (1989): 317–44.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard. Vintage Books Edition. New York: Random House, Inc., 1988.
Funtecha, Henry. “The Making of a ‘Queen City’: The Case of Iloilo 1890s-1930s.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 20, no. 2/3 (September 1992): 107–32.
Goh, Daniel. “Postcolonial Disorientations: Colonial Ethnography and the Vectors of the Philippine Nation in the Imperial Frontier.” Postcolonial Studies 11, no. 3 (2008): 259–76.
Guerrero, Milagros. “The Colorum Uprisings, 1924-1931.” Asian Studies 5, no. 1 (1967): 65–78.
Holt, Elizabeth Mary. Colonizing Filipinas: Nineteenth-Century Representations of the Philippines in Western Historiography. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2002.
Ileto, Reynaldo. Filipinos and Their Revolution: Event, Discourse, and Historiography. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.__________. Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979.
Kaufmann, John. Kapulúngan Binisayá-Ininglís. Iloilo: La Editorial, 1935. https://www.gutenberg.ph/previews/kaufmann/KVED-Body.pdf.
Lanternari, Vittorio. “Nativistic and Socio-Religious Movements: A Reconsideration.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16, no. 4 (September 1974): 483–503.
Larkin, John. Sugar and the Origins of Modern Philippine Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Madrid, Randy, and Joefe Santarita. “Montor: Iloilo’s Robinhood and Reluctant Revolutionary.” In The Struggle Against the Spaniards and the Americans in Western Visayas: Papers on the 1st and 2nd Conferences on the West Visayan Phase of the Philippine Revolution, edited by Henry Funtecha and Melanie Jalandoni Padilla, 129-135. Iloilo: UP in the Visayas Centennial Committee, 1998.
Magos, Alicia P. “Birdin: Bukidnon (Sulod) Revolutionary Hero.” In The Struggle Against the Spaniards and the Americans in Western Visayas: Papers on the 1st and 2nd Conferences on the West Visayan Phase of the Philippine Revolution, edited by Henry Funtecha and Melanie Jalandoni Padilla, 125-128. Iloilo: UP in the Visayas Centennial Committee, 1998.
__________. The Enduring Ma-Aram Tradition: An Ethnography of a Kinaray-a Village in Antique. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1992.
Marco, Sophia. “Dios-Dios in the Visayas.” Philippine Studies 49, no. 1 (2001): 42–77.
McCoy, Alfred. “A Queen Dies Slowly: The Rise and Decline of Iloilo City.” In Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, edited by Alfred McCoy and Edilberto de Jesus, 297–358. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1982.
__________. “Baylan: Animist Religion and Philippine Peasant Ideology.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 10, no. 3 (September 1982): 141–94.
__________. “Sugar Barons: Formation of a Native Planter Class in the Colonial Philippines.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 19, no. 3–4 (1992): 106–41.
Oosterwal, Gottfried. “Messianic Movements.” Philippine Sociological Review 16, no. 1 (1968): 40–50.
Pertierra, Raul. “Philippine Studies and the New Ethnography.” In Cultures and Texts: Representations of Philippine Society, edited by Raul Pertierra and Eduardo Ugarte, 121–37. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1994.
Rafael, Vicente. White Love and Other Events in Filipino History. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000.
Spivak, Gayatri. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271–313. London: MacMillan Education LTD, 1988.
Sturtevant, David. “Guardia de Honor: Revitalization with the Revolution.” Asian Studies 4, no. 2 (1966): 342–52.
Tan, Samuel K. A History of the Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1995. Reprint, 2012.
Vergara, Benito Jr. Displaying Filipinos: Photography and Colonialism in Early 20th Century Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1995.
Other References
Arellano Law Foundation. The LawPhil Project. https://www.lawphil.net/
Cruz-Lucero, Rosario, Doreen Fernandez, John Barrios, and Jeffrey Yap. “Ilonggo.” Our Islands, Our People: The Histories and Cultures of the Filipino Nation (blog), 2018. https://ourislandsourpeople.wordpress.com/ilonggo/.
Hudtohan, Emiliano. “Makinaugalingon Advocacy of Rosendo Mejica.” Dr. Emiliano Hudtohan (blog), July 23, 2014. http://emilianohudtohan.com/makinaugalingon-advocacy-of-rosendo-mejica/.
Lagos, Joy, and Nazaria Lagos. "Remembering Don Rosendo Mejica." The News Today Online Edition, March 12, 2007. http://www.thenewstoday.info/2007/03/12/remembering.don.rosendo.mejica.html.
Lua, Shirley. “Rediscovering the Rosendo Mejica Museum in Molo, Iloilo.” Lifestyle Inquirer, January 4, 2016. https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/218350/rediscovering-the-rosendo-mejica-museum-in-molo-iloilo/.