Categories | Magazine |
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Frequency | Weekly |
Circulation | 90,000 |
Publisher | Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation |
First issue | November 18, 1922 |
Country | Philippines |
Language | Tagalog / Filipino |
Liwayway (Tagalog word meaning "dawn") is a leading Tagalog weekly magazine published in the Philippines since 1922. It contains Tagalog serialized novels, short stories, poetry, serialized comics, essays, news features, entertainment news and articles, and many others. In fact, it is the oldest Tagalog magazine in the Philippines. Its sister publications are Bannawag, Bisaya Magasin, and Hiligaynon.
The magazine had its beginning back 1922 when Don Ramon Roces, the eldest son of Ramon Roces, introduced it after the ill-fated Photo News had declined in the market.
Don Ramon Roces, a prominent man in the publishing business, first conceived Photo News. It was a magazine with its own style, carrying three languages (Spanish, Tagalog and English). The idea to have three languages in one magazine was to allow it to cater to all types of readers (Spanish and Spanish-speaking readers, English, American, and English-speaking readers, and Tagalog language and Filipino readers.
Unfortunately, the trilingual magazine was not well-received because some readers did not want to waste their money reading something they did not understand.
The sales of the magazine gradually declined and this emotionally affected Don Ramon Roces, but he did not give up. When he returned to Manila from Mindanao, he introduced another magazine patterned after Photo News. Unlike Photo News, the magazine concentrated, however, on making Tagalog (now Filipino) its medium, and outpouring support from the reading public was felt when its maiden issue was finally launched in the market.
The magazine was named Liwayway, meaning dawn. It made significant contribution to the field of literature when it introduced the popular masterpieces of great Filipino poets and writers like Jose Corazon de Jesus, Florentino Collanates, Julian Cruz Balmaceda, Cecilio Apostol Borromeo, Lope K. Santos, Inigo Ed Regalado, Romualdo Ramos, Francisco Lacsamana, Fausto Galauran and Pedrito Reyes, the son of Severino Reyes who later succeeded him as the editor of Liwayway.