Philippine Radio, the BBC and Voice of America: A Historical look at resistance radio in the Philippines during World War II

The Japanese relied on radio broadcasting as one of its propaganda tools when it occupied the Philippines in World War 2. Evidently, the power of broadcasting over the consciousness of Filipinos did not escape the Japanese.

Like the Americans before them, the Japanese attempted to re-engineer Filipino consciousness through a re-structuring of the educational system, the teaching of the Japanese language, and the re-orientation of music, arts, the media, and even religious activities. A propaganda machinery managed the cultural fronts including radio, newspapers, film, and theatre. 

However, radio was also one of the most important means used by the resistance to counter Japanese attempts at re-shaping Filipino consciousness. The Japanese took over a radio station in Manila, but the resistance countered with what was called the Voice of Freedom. When the joint Filipino and American forces were overrun by the Japanese, effectively silencing the Voice of Freedom, another clandestine radio, the Voice of Juan dela Cruz, went on the air.

It was short-lived, so Filipinos turned to shortwave signals from the KGEI in the United States, a precursor of the post-war Voice of America, and the BBC in London. Realizing this, the Japanese restricted the reception of radio signals, but the people found ways to defy the orders, secretly listened to overseas radio in spite of the risk to their lives. The Second World War was as much a contest of might as it was a battle of ideologies, and radio broadcasting was a critical combat zone.

About the speaker

Elizabeth L. Enriquez (PhD, University of the Philippines Diliman) is Professor Emeritus of Broadcasting. She has been teaching in the College of Mass Communication, University of the Philippines Diliman, since 1990, developing and handling courses in media history; media theory; political economy of media; media literacy; and media, gender, and sexuality.

She is author of several publications, including the book Appropriation of Colonial Broadcasting: A History of Early Radio in the Philippines, 1922-1946 (UP Press 2008) and the monograph with video documentary Radyo: An Essay on Philippine Radio (CCP 2003), both pioneering and still the only extensive works on Philippine broadcast history, apart from the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd Ed. (2017), in which she served as writer and one of the two editors of the Broadcast Volume. She is a partner in the international consortium Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS).

About the project

This event has been produced under the Decolonizing South East Asian Sound Archives (DECOSEAS), a three-year research and community engagement project funded by the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Cultural Heritage and Global Change supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.  

The United Kingdom work package, led by P.I. Dr Cristina Juan, is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Its research focus is on the presence of the BBC in South East Asia during Great Britain's late colonial and early post-colonial periods (1927-1961).