Max Solivén

Also known as: Maximo Villaflor Soliven — full name · Maximo V. Soliven — the Library of Congress authorized form · The "boy publisher" — the remembered tag from his youthful editorship of The Evening News · Max — the byline signature on "By The Way"

Society

Definition

Max Solivén (Maximo Villaflor Soliven; September 4, 1929, Manila – November 24, 2006, Narita, Japan) was a Filipino journalist and newspaper publisher whose six-decade career ran from the pre-martial-law Manila Times to the post-EDSA broadsheet boom: he co-founded the Philippine Daily Inquirer (1985) and The Philippine Star (1986), serving as the Star’s publisher and chairman of the board until his death. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan) He is remembered above all for the column “By The Way” — first published in The Manila Times on February 3, 1964 and written six days a week in the Star until the end — and for his arrest in the first hours of martial law in 1972, after he aired the Oplan Sagittarius exposé with Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. on television. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

His death was a journalist’s exit: he collapsed at Narita International Airport — having faxed his last column from Tokyo the night before, a piece about Japan’s new prime minister — and was pronounced dead of cardiac and respiratory arrest at the Narita Red Cross Hospital at 11:26 a.m. Tokyo time on November 24, 2006, aged 77. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan) President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo posthumously conferred on him the Order of Lakandula, rank of Grand Officer, hailing him as an “icon of freedom.” (Wikipedia — Max Soliven)

Identities

Authority	Value
Wikipedia	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Soliven
Wikidata	Q1914219
DBpedia	https://dbpedia.org/page/Max_Soliven
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings	Soliven, Maximo V., 1929-2006
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Max+Soliven%22
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Maximo Villaflor Soliven — full name
Maximo V. Soliven — the Library of Congress authorized form
The “boy publisher” — the remembered tag from his youthful editorship of The Evening News
Max — the byline signature on “By The Way”

Examples and Analogies

The columnist as institution: “By The Way” ran from its February 3, 1964 Times debut through the Star’s pages for more than four decades — a six-days-a-week column famous for its “Alikabok” Malacañang scoops and trademark interjections like “sanamagan” and “susmaryosep,” so that a Soliven byline became a fixed feature of Philippine mornings. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)
A career in two foundings: Soliven belongs to the small company of editors who built two broadsheets — the Inquirer in 1985 with the founders this wiki’s Eugenia Duran Apostol and Betty Go-Belmonte entries document, and the Star in 1986, the paper this wiki’s Philippine Star entry records as founded by Betty Go-Belmonte, Max Soliven, and Art Borjal — one paper before EDSA, one after. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)
The foreign-desk Filipino: he covered the Vietnam War and the Tet Offensive, the 1965 Indonesian coup (interviewing Suharto), and China’s first atomic bomb test in 1964, where he interviewed Zhou Enlai. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)
A death at the deadline: he called the Star newsdesk from Tokyo the evening before he died — asking, in the paper’s retelling, “What’s the big news there?” — and faxed in that night’s column; “He died doing what he loved best, and what he did better than most – he was a journalist to the end.” (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Martial-Law Press

Researchers of the Marcos-era press use Soliven’s 1972 as a primary case: after the Oplan Sagittarius exposé aired with Ninoy Aquino on his television program Impact, he was arrested at 2 a.m. on September 23, 1972, detained at Fort Bonifacio — sharing a cell with Aquino — for 70 days, and released on December 3, 1972 under conditions that included a seven-year foreign-travel ban. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

2. Tracing the Post-EDSA Broadsheet Boom

The founding generation of the post-1986 press — Apostol and Go-Belmonte of the Inquirer, Go-Belmonte and Soliven and Art Borjal of the Star — is documented across this wiki’s entries on those figures and papers; Soliven’s Star, first issued July 28, 1986, became the column-driven broadsheet he published until his death. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

3. Reading the Columnist Tradition

Students of Philippine English journalism read “By The Way” as the type specimen of the opinion column as newsmaker — scoops broken in opinion space, presidents answered by nickname, and a personal idiom (“sanamagan,” “susmaryosep”) distinctive enough to be quoted back to him. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

4. Documenting Foreign Correspondence

His reporting file — Vietnam, Tet, Indonesia 1965, China’s first atomic test and the Zhou Enlai interview, the 1968 Mexico City riots — documents the era when Manila dailies kept their own war reporters rather than wire-service copy alone. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

Strategies

Separate the two foundings: the Inquirer (December 1985, the anti-Marcos paper of the twilight dictatorship) and the Star (July 28, 1986, the post-EDSA startup) are different acts in different political moments — Soliven’s role in both is documented, but the papers should not be conflated. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)
Date the column, not just the paper: “By The Way” is a Manila Times creation (February 3, 1964) that outlived the paper’s 1972 closure and reopened era — the column is the through-line of the career, spanning the Times, the pre-1986 interregnum, and the Star. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)
Handle the conflicting ages with attribution: the Star’s obituary says he was “at 27… already editor and publisher of The Evening News,” while the standard reference article gives 32 — quote the age with its source rather than choosing one. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan, Wikipedia — Max Soliven)
Use the honors as the record: Journalist of the Year four times (per his own paper’s obituary), France’s Legion d’Honneur, Spain’s Orden Isabel la Catolica, and the posthumous Order of Lakandula — each honor is a documented datum of reputation, best cited to its conferring authority. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan, Wikipedia — Max Soliven)
Read him beside his peers: the generation documented in this wiki’s Betty Go-Belmonte, Eugenia Duran Apostol, and The Manila Times entries — editors whose papers were closed, founded, and refounded across dictatorship and restoration — is the frame in which Soliven’s publisher years belong. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven)

Security and Safety Measures

The press-freedom record: Soliven’s arrest at 2 a.m. on September 23, 1972 — hours into martial law, in reprisal for publishing and broadcasting the Oplan Sagittarius leaks — is part of the documented record of the dictatorship’s press closures, which this wiki’s The Manila Times entry records for the shutdown ordered the same day. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)
Detention and its conditions: his 70 days at Fort Bonifacio ended with a release conditioned on a seven-year foreign-travel ban — a documented example of the conditional release through which the regime managed released detainees. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven)
State honors as posthumous redress: the Order of Lakandula (Grand Officer), conferred after his death by President Arroyo with the “icon of freedom” citation, formally recognized the career the dictatorship had jailed. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven)
For obituarists and archivists: his last column — faxed from Tokyo the night of November 23–24, 2006, on Japan’s new prime minister — is preserved in the Star’s archive as the final installment of “By The Way,” the paper’s own account being the primary source. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan, Wikipedia — Max Soliven)

Historical Context

Soliven was born in Ermita, Manila, on September 4, 1929, at the Philippine General Hospital — the eldest of ten children of Benito Soliven, a pre-war National Assemblyman who died of the aftereffects of the Bataan Death March and imprisonment at Capas. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven) Educated at the Ateneo de Manila University — where he managed The Guidon — with a master’s from Fordham (1954) and study at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, he began in journalism at the Catholic paper The Sentinel, won Journalist of the Year from the National Press Club in 1957 at the Manila Chronicle, and moved to The Manila Times as associate business editor from 1957 to 1960, returning in 1964 — the year “By The Way” was born on February 3. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven) He edited and published The Evening News in between, and reported the Cold War’s Asian fronts as a foreign correspondent. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

Martial law broke the sequence: the Oplan Sagittarius broadcast with Aquino brought soldiers to his door at 2 a.m. on September 23, 1972; seventy days of detention and a conditional release followed. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven) The restoration made him a founder twice over — the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1985, the paper of Apostol and Go-Belmonte; then The Philippine Star on July 28, 1986, which he published and chaired until his death, alongside PEOPLE Asia magazine and PAL’s Mabuhay. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan) He died at Narita on November 24, 2006; his remains, cremated in Tokyo, were brought home on November 28 with full military honors, and he was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on January 10, 2007. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven)

Challenges and Controversies

The Evening News Age

The Star’s own obituary and the standard reference article disagree on when he ran The Evening News — 27 in the one, 32 in the other — a small discrepancy, but one that flags how much of the “boy publisher” legend rests on memory; the age should be quoted with its source. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan, Wikipedia — Max Soliven)

The Founder Lists

Who founded the Star? This wiki’s Philippine Star entry documents the trio of Betty Go-Belmonte, Max Soliven, and Art Borjal; the standard reference article on Soliven names him and Go-Belmonte; the Inquirer’s announcement of his death called him its “founding publisher” — each roster is accurate to its context, and researchers should cite the specific paper’s record rather than a merged list. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

A Columnist’s Politics

A six-day column across six presidencies inevitably took sides — the “Alikabok” Malacañang exclusives were praised as access and criticized as proximity to power; the obituary record documents the scoops and the style, while assessments of the column’s political judgments belong to the press historians. (Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)

Death Abroad, Honored at Home

The circumstances — collapsing at Narita airport, his last column filed hours before — fixed the legend, but the state’s response (posthumous Order of Lakandula, burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani with military honors) also drew on his Second World War service, a part of the record separate from his journalism. (Wikipedia — Max Soliven, Philippine Star — Soliven dies in Japan)