Times celebrates 126th year with launch of streaming channel

FOR more than a century, The Manila Times has been a witness to major events and dramatic shifts in the country's history and reported these to Filipinos and the rest of the world. One of those shifts — the rapid development of digital media — has also changed the way The Manila Times goes about its business of keeping people informed. Today, aside from its flagship daily print edition The Times also publishes a digital edition available to users online and on their devices, as well as its website and its social media handles. The Times also launched its first streaming channel, developed by Castify Ltd., where viewers can watch the paper's exclusive content and receive daily updates through their devices. In addition, an app was launched on October 6, and can be downloadable on Google Play or on the Apple App Store. The Manila Times also organizes forums. On September 19, it held its Modern Cities and Municipalities 2024 awards night, which saw Baguio City bag the top model city prize. Representatives from 1,642 cities and municipalities took part in this event. Next year, The Times is expected to release a "bookazine" on sustainability, titled "Pathways to Prosperity: The Manila Times Smart and Sustainable Companies and Communities," with a special launch held during the Model Cities and Municipalities forum and awards night. The company's president and chief operating officer Blanca Mercado expects bigger events hosted by The Times to take place outside Metro Manila, as well as in other smart cities in the Philippines. "We move on with bigger fora and we hope to take these outside of Metro Manila and different smart cities and provinces," she said. Origins The Manila Times, founded by an Englishman named Thomas Gowan, published its first issue on Oct. 11, 1898, months after the country declared its independence from Spain. The first paper only had two leaves, or four pages, with each page divided into two columns. The first page was taken up by announcements and advertisements. Page 2 was the editorial page. It contained the editorials and the more important news of the day. Page 3 was devoted to cable news from Europe and the United States all bearing on the Spanish-American War. The Manila Times was originally a bulletin that used to appear along the streets of Manila, as a press cable in the English language. The first major story was about the Paris Conference that would later see the Treaty of Paris, which would transfer the Philippines from Spain to the United States. "Factually speaking, the issue of The Times on Oct. 11, 1898, was not the first. The day before, a bulletin entitled 'The Manila Times' and dated Oct. 10, 1898, appeared in the streets of Manila. The bulletin carried the first press cable in English received in the Philippines. It dealt with the convening of the Paris Conference to end the Spanish-American War," the paper's history read. The Times is the Philippines' first and oldest English language daily newspaper. Gowan published the Times "to meet the demand for an American paper in Manila," referring to the US Army men who occupied the Philippine capital at the time. It also had a motto, "Pioneer American daily in the Far East," which is "published every day since 1898." The Times was first shut down on March 14, 1930, then reopened in 1945 under its new offices and the name The Manila Times Publishing Co. Inc. It previously held office at the Ramon Roces Publications Building on Soler and Calero streets in what is now Legarda Street in Sampaloc, later moving to the Taliba, La Vanguardia and The Tribune Building. This version of The Times' first issue came on May 27, 1945 under the name The Sunday Times, and was then a tabloid size newspaper, which resembled the dimensions of the first Manila Times in 1898. On Sept. 23, 1972, The Times would shut down again, as a result of then-president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. imposing martial law nationwide. The Roces family would later revive the newspaper on Feb. 5, 1986, just weeks before the EDSA People Power Revolution. In 1989, the Roces family would sell the paper to tycoon John Gokongwei. Mark Jimenez briefly acquired the paper in 2001 until he handed it over later that year to Dr. Dante Arevalo Ang, who now serves as The Times' chairman emeritus. His vision was to make The Times "handsomely profitable," while also serving as one of the "top influential dailies" in the Philippines. Currently, The Manila Times is led by Ang's son, Dante Francis Ang II, who now serves as the chairman and chief executive officer.