Visayan Shinbun 

Fifty-eight years ago today, the first issue of the Visayan Shinbun (1942-44) came out. Published by the Manila Shinbun-ya and edited by Cebuano writer Napoleon Dejoras, this was the pro-Japanese newspaper after the Japanese Military Administration took control of government in Cebu.

Billed as an “independent Filipino publication” and sold at five centavos a copy (appearing thrice, later six times a week), it was in fact an organ meant to consolidate public consent to Japanese rule.

This was already manifested in the newspaper’s first issue. It carried the “successes” of the Japanese and Axis forces in China, Burma, Egypt, and other parts of the world. It also printed official directives from the Japanese Military Administration appointing “temporary governors” in the Visayas  (including Hilario Abellana in Cebu), imposing penalties on profiteering, and de-legalizing emergency notes issued by the Filipino-American resistance forces.

The main local story carried in the first issue, entitled “The Death of B.D. Valeriano and Three Other Patriots”, dealt with the killing of four prominent Cebuanos - former PC Colonel Benito Valeriano, Jose Osmeña (a son of Don Sergio), Miguel Veloso, and Ramon Severino – in Villahermoso, Negros on May 12, 1942. The four had been sent by the Japanese to Negros to urge the surrender of Filipino-American Forces in that island. Instead, a Filipino-American Forces in that island murdered them. Instead, they were murdered by a Filipino corporal assigned to guard them.

A related story reported that the Japanese Military Administration was sponsoring the neurological services in Cebu to honor the four “patriots”.

Visayan Shinbun tried to reflect the rise of a new order. In the editorial “Asia for the Asiatic”, the editor spoke with optimism about a new and dynamic “nationalism” and the prospects for posterity “under the benevolent and inspired leadership of Japan”

Source: Ybarra