First issues of Philippine Postage Stamps

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Previous to the year 1854 stamps for the prepayment of mail matter were unknown in the Philippines. This was not strange, for the first postage stamp was only issued in 1840 by Great Britain and by the United States in 1845. Spain issued its first stamps in 1850.

(The 10 cuartos stamp)

In 1842 the editor of the Seminario Filipino, Don Gregorio Borjas, recommended a system of post offices and Sinibaldo de Mas in his report to the Queen in 1842 mentioned the need for a mail service. In 1843, the following year, Governor General Marcelino Oraa y Lecumberri published rules for the safeguarding and carriage of the mail. Commercial and private correspondence was intrusted to private carriers while official mail marked S. N. (Servicio Nacional) was carried by special messengers or by the Royal Galleys in the interisland communications.

It is reported that an Englishman in Manila suggested the pre-payment of important mail by an adhesive stamp as early as 1842, the design of which was a sun surrounded by rays-forerunner of the Katipunan designs. The value was one escudo de oro, about two pesos of our present money (1935 peso value). In the original decree, dated Madrid, January 5, and signed by Minister Claudio Anton Luzuriaga, the postage rates for the Philippine Islands carried by municipal carriers (polistas and cuadrilleros) were to be 5 cuartos vellon, about 1-1/4 cents of the present currency for local letters. Those for Spain and foreign countries were to be 10 cuartos vellon, with proper equivalents in reales de plata and reales de calderilla, another, coinage then existent.

In March, 1854, however, the first stamps were produced locally by the Philippine Government. These were mainly for local use, but some found their way to Europe on cover as well. The high real values were in the main for registered mail, the cover of which with the stamps was retained by the government as a receipt, as in Spain, and these, in consequence, are rarer on cover than the low values.

The design was the head of Queen Isabella II, but so crudely drawn as to make the genuine stamps look like frauds, and as the inks were purchased locally from the Chinese stores, these varied, and were not lasting in color. The stamps were made by Filipinos, first engraved and then printed in the establishment of Plana, Jorba y Compaña in Manila. The metal plates from which they were printed bore five rows of eight stamps each, and this, due to minor differences, caused forty different types. In each sheet of 40 of the 1 real was the error Corros instead of Correos (number 26 in each sheet). For the most part these were printed on white wove paper and there were four values. Of the 5 cuartos orange and the 10 cuartos carmine, 5000 each were printed; and of the 1 real slate and 2 reales green, 2000 each, the first two for ordinary mail the others for registration or heavy letters. There was a change of color in the 10 cuartos value to rose. In June and in August, as the low values were exhausted, a further printing was made of a few thousands, distinguished by a new design.

(Governor General Marcelino Oraa y Lecumberri)

The entire stamp needs for the Islands were then for the first year less than 28,000, hence their rarity and their value at the present day to collectors. There are also many counterfeits of these issues. Spanish usage was to change colors and designs every one or two years and a few thousand stamps of the Cuban issue were sent here in 1856 which can only be distinguished by the postmarks. Due to distance, time, and the tardiness in filling orders common in Spain, stamps were produced locally, and the troubled political times in the mother country necessitated various overprints and surcharges which, through no fault of the government here, has made collecting difficult. In fact it is said that fraudulent marking designs made in Paris, were delivered to the addressee by the postal authorities themselves, after fees were paid covering the package through the post office.

In 1863 the printing contract was given to La Ilustracion Filipina. The stamps were of finer designs and the inks good. Issues of Nos. 14 to 20 were as follows: 5 cuartos vermilion, 9000; 10 cuartos carmine, 7000; 1 real violet and 2 reales blue, 5000 each; 1 real plata gray-green, 1 real dark-green, and 1 real emerald green, the first 7000 copies and the last two 5000 each. This was the end of producing stamps locally for some thirty years.

In March, 1864, there was a protest made by commercial firms, parish priests, and government officials in reference to scandals in handling the sales and the high cost of printing. In February, 1863, the printing of 700 stamps cost $85.00; but from this date until 1898 all stamps were printed in Madrid and forwarded to the Philippines. Furthermore a new fractional currency came into use in the form of copper coins called marivedies and new rates were made necessary for carrying ordinary letters which was 2-4/8ths centimos about 3-1/2 cents of our present currency.

But the amounts varied with the distance the letter went and its importance, running as high as $1.50 (Mex.) for from 15 to 20 sheets of small folio paper. At first stamps were retailed outside the main post offices by small cigar stores called estanquillas in Tondo, Binondo, Quiapo, etc., but thefts and losses made for their abolishment in 1870. In 1875 there were only twenty-eight post offices in the Philippines, three in Manila, sixteen in Luzon, six in the Visayas and three in Mindanao, showing the small use of the mails. Compare this today when the last report gives 1257 post offices in the Islands.

Stamps of the Revolutionary Government

The stamps of the Philippine Revolutionary government issued in 1898 and 1899 are known as Aguinaldos or Katipunans the first from Emilio Aguinaldo and the second from the designs used, the triangle, sun, and the three stars, said to represent Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The three K's on each stamp are said to stand for Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang Katipunan. They were issued by order of the Revolutionary government sitting at Malolos, Bulacan. As the retirement of the Spanish government in 1898 had left postal affairs in a chaotic condition, and as the American forces only held Manila and Cavite after August, 1898, awaiting the outcome of negotiations in Paris, the conveyance of the mails were a very vital and necessary function in those troubled times. Some say that the printing of the Revolutionary issues was done in Barasoin in Bulacan, but this does not sound reasonable as Manila had both the workmen and the facilities for doing the work. It may be, however, that the first designs were produced there.

(Stamps of the Revolutionary Government)

The designs bore the Katipunan triangle, the sun, and the stars in various combinations with the values in the currency of the times. They consisted of a 1 milisima newspaper stamp in black, the 2 centavos correos in red, and the 8 centavos registration stamp in green. With these were issued a 2 centavos violet and a 50 centavos blue telegraph stamps, a brown revenue for receipts, 10 centavos, and a red-brown revenue, without value, for livestock documents. There are a set of five large judicial stamps existent also. There are no means of finding out the quantities issued, but these must be large, stocks being still held in Hongkong and China, but in the main, being contraband, they were destroyed. Covers that did duty in the mails are not too common. The undersigned when with the U. S. Army in Cavite captured a supply of the 2 centavos stamp to the face value of over P60,000, with a half dozen cases of Mabini money printed on newspaper stock, but was ordered to burn the booty by higher authority. The issue existed perforate and imperforate and there were two types of the 2 centavos red correos, one with deep red burelage and very rare, worth 300 francs, the other bearing the legend "Correos y Telegrafos", instead of "Correos" only, and today worth about 50 francs.

However, there is no doubt that a large quantity of mail was franked and carried by these stamps, for in the first six months, very naturally there was no opposition whatever to their use. They were used from about June or July, 1898, until well into 1901. The writer has also seen a collection of town postmarks made for the Revolutionary government with over two hundred different towns represented, a large increase from the twenty-eight in function some twenty-five years before. After the insurrection began in February, 1899, the military authorities confiscated and destroyed all stocks found, and mail was carried by special messengers, sometimes bearing the stamps also as a means of revenue. Letters bearing them found in the regular mail carried by the posts were censored and if found private were delivered the addressee upon payment in ordinary United States stamps.

The stamps themselves were never recognized by the International Postal Union, pending the establishment of a de facto government, and they could frank no mail except locally. Still covers have been seen bearing both these and the last Spanish issues, mailed and carried to Hongkong and China, when all mails, men, and authorities were in a state of transition. The present price of a set of these stamps, without errors, excepting the judicial issue is not over fifty centavos, but so far no great stocks have been discovered, they having, as we have pointed out, been systematically destroyed, and interest in them, as is but natural, being still merely local.

The Cantonal Issues of Negros

When the Spanish authorities vacated the island of Negros and concentrated in Iloilo, a government was founded by the inhabitants and termed a Cantonal government. This carried on for some time as the tide of insurrection had not yet invaded this prosperous sugar region. But expectant of being drawn into the game of war, the constituted authorities being for the most part solid citizens, requested the protection of the United States forces, which when landed took over the government, the first governor being Colonel James Smith of the First Californias, who later became Governor-General of the Philippines.

On the retirement of the Spaniards, postal needs called for stamps. An issue was printed on rough stock in Bacolod, the capital, in red-brown with the Katipunan triangle in blue in the center. The design was conventional and the values were 2-8-16-20 and 50 centavos, the design being the same for all the denominations. The stamps were perforated on all sides and bore the legend at the top: "CANTON ISLA DE NEGROS"; below: "Dios-PatriaLey-Fraternidad-Igualdad"; the sides read: "Correos Locales Telegrafos y Rentas"; they being a sort of general postage-revenue such as those of British colonies. The stamps were said to have been made on the initiati ve of General Juan Araneta, then the Secretary of War of the Cantonal government, who later occupied other positions under the American regime.

Upon the advent of the Americans the issues were discontinued and destroyed and United States stamps took their places as these carried the mail under military auspices all over the Archipelago. The few covers bearing these stamps were naturally destroyed when these became contraband, as possession might have meant a prison sentence. Three sets were found among the papers of the deceased General Araneta in 1929, with the note, "Recuerdos del pasado"-Remembrances of the past. These are now in the collections of philatelists through the kindness of Mr. Jose E. Marco of Bacolod, Negros, who is not only an enthusiastic collector but has made researches into the old postal history of the Islands, and furthermore publishes the only philatelic paper in the Philippines with a large foreign circulation.

There was another short-lived Cantonal set issued on the initiative of Governor Melecio Severino and the father of Mr. Marco in December, 1899, three denominations, a 5 centavos green, a 10 centavos red, and a 20 centavos blue. Covers have been seen with the first value. They were printed on a platen press in the office of La Libertad, a paper of Bacolod, Negros, but the supply and plates were destroyed before the military arrived to seize them. There was also a stamp, known as the Bohol Provisional, printed on thick orange paper. It had the legend "Sello Provisional Correos Bohol", with three stars in a lined, border. The authenticity of this stamp is open to doubt, however.

All unauthorized postage stamps were systematically destroyed by the forces occupying the Archipelago, which is the reason so few copies used or unused have come to hand. To give some idea of the rigorous policy adopted towards these issues we quote here from Mr. Marco's book the copy of an order given by the military commander in Negros in 1900:

Source:

1. Philippine Stamps - The first issues, Percy A. Hill, Philippine Magazine, Volume 32, Number 1, January 1935