PREFACE

Welcome to Philippine popular culture. This module is made to cater to your needs. The
purpose of this module is to help you while you are studying at home. This also serves to open
opportunities for you to learn new things about this subject.

The entire course will deal on the following:

1. Understand the historico-spatial condition and phenomenon of Philippine

Modernity.
2. Investigate how Philippine culture is operational, circulated, re-produced,
consumed and instrumentalized by the recurring social order.
3. Value the importance of national life’s sphere in social activities and lived
experience economy.

How the Module is Organized

Week Course outcomes Topics

1-2 Module 1 A Historical Inquiry of Philippine

Popular Culture
3-5 Module 2 Framing the Popular

6-8 Module 3 The political-economy of media

9 MIDTERM EXAMINATION

10-13 Module 4 Socio-Political Aspect

14-17 Module 5 Critiques and Fissure in the Culture

of Popular Culture
18 FINAL EXAMINATION

How to use this Module

As the government limits our face-to-
face interaction and prohibit mass gatherings, distance learning is a major component of
learning delivery for this school year. Distance learning means lessons will be delivered
outside the traditional face-to-face setup as the country deals with this pandemic.
Learning is in the form of individualized instruction that allow you to use self-
learning modules (SLMs). Where you can actively construct you own knowledge
through the experiences you will gain in reading and answering this learning modules.
To finish this course and be able to gain all the competencies and skills expected
to demonstrate the learning outcomes as stated in this course, you should take time to
read everything written in the module, actively and conscientiously answer all the
exercises.

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2

TO THE LEARNERS:

This module has icons that you should be familiar with as you work through the entire
modules of this subject.

What is this In this part you will know the contents of this module.
module all
about

This part of the module will tell you what are the
What will you learning competencies that you need to achieve.
learn from this
module

This is short activity or review of the previous lesson

Let’s See What that aims to help you bridge the current to the past
You Already lesson.
Know

In this part the new lesson will be introduced to you

Let’s Try This through various activities such as stories, songs,
poems, motivational questions or situations.

In this part the new lesson will be discussed. The

Let’s Learn concepts will help you understand the new concepts
and skills.

This part contains activities and questions that can

What Can You help you translate theoretical learnings to practical
Do application.

This part contains questions and activities that aims to

Let’s See What process the lessons that you learned in this module.
You Have This involves activities and exercises that aims to
Learned enhance your understanding and skills related on the
topic at hand

This part contains questions and activities that aims to

What Have You assess and measure the level of learning of the target
Learned? competencies.

At the end of the module, a glossary of terms is

Glossary prepared for you to serve as your guide on the
different concepts and terms found in the module.

References At the end of the module, references are provided.

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2

Module 2
Framing the Philippine
Popular Culture

What is this module all about?

This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you
better understand the importance of Philippine Pop Culture by walking you through
discovering your strengths and weakness, your talents and skills. As a bonus, you will
be given fun enrichment activities. Be careful in answering the exercises and tasks by
carefully reading every given instruction. Let’s begin!

What Will You Learn From This Module?

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1.1 Explain the framing of the popular culture in the Philippines.
1.2 Identify how these popular culture emerge in the Philippines
1.3 Judge the importance of framing the popular cultures

The first part of your module will not

only test your prior knowledge but will
also introduce you to the next lesson.
Happy learning!

Let’s See What You Already Know

Warm up Activity : Tell me
Influencers Popular Culture Example

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2

 Congratulations for completing the
first activities. Did you enjoy them?

Now you will be learning A Historical Inquiry of Philippine Pop Culture.

Study the inputs given and be ready to complete different activities that will test your
knowledge and understanding as you go through the lesson.

Let’s Learn
Lecturette
Electronic media - film, radio, television, the large-circulation press - were established in
the Philippine scene early in the twentieth century.

In the middle seventies there came the literature scholars who began to examine film,
television, radio and comics as modes of fiction and drama - in different media. Their
concern was that of the cultural critic, and was derived from that of the literary critic.
This concern was bred by the recognition that "serious" literature - the novel, the short
story, the poem, the play - was not reaching the great majority, not even the urban
masses, and certainly not the rural masses. Even more urgently, since 1972 and the
imposition of martial law, there were few outlets for the short story and the poem, and
only one, Liwayway and its regional brethren, for the popular novel. Plays were hardly
ever published except in university-bast:#J publications (how far could those reach
out?), and when performed, reached only those of the immediate spatial community, the
urban community, the school community, the town, the barrio. Any literary product
reaching the people was getting there through the media, and that reach, that power,
needed to be studied, analyzed, evaluated.

Komiks. The first Filipino comic strip was "Kenkoy," which first appeared in 1929, its
main character a city slicker through whom creator Antonio Velasquez commented on

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2

"the foibles of Filipinos grappling with the new manners and mores brought about by
urbani~ation."~ It then consisted of four frames, used as a filler in the popular weekly
Liwayway, but eventually grew to a full-page feature. By 193 1 other comic strip
characters joined slick-haired Kenkoy, almost all of them modelled on American A
comics characters: Kulafu, who roamed the mountains of Luzon as Tarzan did Africa;
Huapelo, the Chinese corner store owner (long a stock figure of fun in Philippine life,
fiction and drama), Saryong Albularyo, the barrio doctor whose last name meant quack;
Goyo and Kikay, local counterparts of Maggie and Jigg~,~ and so on through the years
and the changing fashions to eventually include today's superheroes, horror stories,
science fiction, preternatural creatures derived both from lower Philippine mytho logy
and from Western sources. And so there appear Dyesebel the siren; the flying Darna;
the Medusa-like Valentina, characters from Philippine folklore, otherworldly royalty and
nobility out of the quatrains of the awit and cordo, freaks of many persuasions like
phantomanok (phantom and rooster) and horse-bodied Petra, + magical agents of good
like Karina and her flying kariton (pushcart), historical figures, sports figures, and in a
more realistic vein, people from daily life - martyred mothers and drunken fathers and
business executives and blue-collar workers.
government agencies to cany such developmental messages as the Green Revolution
(home vegetable garden
The content - the dreams, the hopes, the values, the vision of life, the escape from
reality (that suggests the reality escaped ns), housing programs, and family planning
from), the problems and their solutions, the total world view reflected in the komiks -
defmitely makes the komiks popular culture

Film The first films shown in the Philippines were short features called cinematrografo,
usually presented interspersed with zarzuela or vaudeville numbers. In 1909, two
Americans, Yearsley and Gross, produced the first two locally made feature films, both
on the life of Jose Rizal. The first full-length feature film, A was Jose Nepomuceno's
"Dalagang Bukid," in 1919, which used the story and the star of Herrnogenes Ilagan's
zarzuela of the same name, the most successful play of the type (it is said to have
played at least 1000 times all around the islands). The first talking picture in the islands
was made in 1932 by Musser, and titled "Ang ~swang

Radio. In June 1922, three 50-watt stations owned and operated by an electrical supply
company and organized by an American, Henry Hermann, were given temporary
permits to set up stations in Manila and Pasay.12 The stations were mainly for
demonstration, and for about two years provided mostly music for the few who owned
sets. They were replaced by a 100-watt station, KZKZ. By 1939 there were four stations

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2

owned by department stores, which used them mainly to advertise their own
merchandise. Advertising in radio by companies other than the owners began in 1932.
Radio control laws were promulgated at about the same time that these outside
advertisements began to be accepted.
During the Japanese occupation, all radio stations were closed, except KZRH, which
was renamed PIAM.
But 1945, and the end of the occupation, heralded the real birth of Philippine radio.
Within five years after the war, there were thirty operating stations. In 196 1, the largest
broadcasting chain in the Philippines began to be formed, first as the Bolinao
Electronics Corporation, which became then the Alto Broadcasting System, then the
Chronicle Broadcasting Network, which A after Martial Law became the Kanlaon
Broadcasting System
Popular Magazines. The first magazine of general circulation (vis-a-vis those of special
interest, for example, the religious weeklies of the 19th century) in the Philippines was
probably The Philippine Magazine, published in 1905. It cannot quite be called
"popular," however, since it was in English, and therefore, not available to the majority,
especially at that time, when the teaching of English had begun only four years earlier.
Perhaps it is the Philippines Free Press which should be called the first, because
although it was in English, it was printed on cheap newsprint and eventually, by the time
it stopped publication in 1972, was indeed read by the majority of the English-speaking
Philippine public.

Popular Music. Until as recently as seven years ago, pop music in the Philippines was
definitely American. There was popular music earlier - kundimans, zarzuelas, love
songs, street songs, children's nonsense songs - and although some of these actually
found their way into records, they were not sung on vaudeville stages or spun out on the
airlanes. Even the nationalism and activism of the late sixties and early seventies did
not change the steady diet of American pop, rock, and Broadway on the airlanes, TV
variety shows, and stage shows, although they did arouse an interest in old Philippine
songs which were sometimes reworded to suit new conditions.

The Literature of Popular Culture. The literature of popular culture consists mainly of:
a) reportage and feature stories in daily newspapers and weekly magazines; b) reviews
of films, television shows, pop concerts or performances, and very occasionally, radio
programs

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2

 Let’s See What You Have Learned
This evaluation will measure your knowledge on the topic framing the
popular.
1. What do you think is the reason why Japanese close the radio stations in the
Philippines?
2. What is the reason why electronic-media, radio, magazines and etc. are used as
a tool for literature?
3. What is/are the theme use in komik during the hit of popular culture in the
Philippines?
4. How did the Filipinos admire the magazine even though it was written in English
and English language was not yet taught at that time?
5. How did the Americans influence our Music in the Philippines?

Reference
Danesi,M.(2015).Popularculture:Introductoryperspectives(3rded.).London:Rowman&Littlefield

Garchitorena, A. Pop Culture and the Rise of social Media in the Philippines pdf file

Griffin,M.(2012).Afirstlookatcommunicationtheory(8thed.).NewYork:McGraw-Hill

Fedorak,S.A.(2009).PopCulture:Thecultureofeverydaylife.Toronto:UniversityofTorontoPress

Fernandez, D. G. (1981). Philippine Popular Culture: Dimensions and Directions The State of Research in
Philippine Popular Culture. Philippine Studies, 29(1), 26–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42632570

Fernandez,D.G.
(2002).Masscultureandculturalpolicy:ThePhilippineexperience.Budhi,5(36.1).RetrievedSeptember19,202
0,fromhttps://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/index.php/budhi/article/view/59/591

Khan.R.E.(2015).Mediaandinformationliteracyhandbook.Mandaluyong:AnvilPublishing

PHILIPPINE POP CULTURE MODULE 2