The Manila Times

Also known as: The Times — the common short styling · "Trusted since 1898" — the masthead slogan · The oldest existing English-language newspaper in the Philippines — the identity claim of the press record · The Manila Times of the Roces years — the postwar era's designation, under publisher Chino Roces

Media

Definition

The Manila Times is an English-language broadsheet published in Manila and the oldest extant English-language newspaper in the Philippines — founded on October 11, 1898 by Thomas Gowan, “an Englishman who had been living in the Philippines,” its first issue a sheet of two leaves, four pages, and its masthead today carrying the slogan “Trusted since 1898.” (Wikipedia — The Manila Times) The paper this wiki’s entry on journalism in the Philippines records as the start of the extant dailies’ lineage, it is not to be confused with El Renacimiento, the Spanish-language nationalist daily of the same era whose libel ordeal occupies a different chapter of the press record. (LawPhil — Worcester v. Ocampo)

Its history is a documented chain of closures and revivals. Sold by Gowan within a year and passing through a succession of owners — among them Manuel L. Quezon, who owned the paper from 1919 to 1921 — it was first shut down on March 15, 1930 and did not publish again until its 1945 reopening after World War II, after which it was sold to Chino Roces (Joaquin Roces), under whom it became by 1950 the country’s largest-circulating newspaper. Martial law ordered it shut on September 23, 1972, with Roces among those arrested; it reopened on February 5, 1986, days before the People Power Revolution; and it survived a third closure — the shutdown of July 23, 1999, in the crisis that followed the Estrada libel suit — to publish today under The Manila Times Publishing Corp., with Dante Ang as chairman emeritus. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times, Wikipedia — Journalism during the Marcos dictatorship)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	The Manila Times
Wikidata	The Manila Times (Q1573100)
DBpedia	The_Manila_Times
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	Manila (English proper noun — the Philippine capital; the place name in the masthead, not the newspaper)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Manila Times October 11 1898 Thomas Gowan oldest extant English newspaper Philippines Quezon ownership 1919 1921 first closure March 15 1930 Chino Roces 1950 largest circulation September 23 1972 martial law February 5 1986 revival Estrada libel 1999 Dante Ang
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

The Times — the common short styling
“Trusted since 1898” — the masthead slogan
The oldest existing English-language newspaper in the Philippines — the identity claim of the press record
The Manila Times of the Roces years — the postwar era’s designation, under publisher Chino Roces

Examples and Analogies

A paper older than the republic it covers: founded on October 11, 1898 — four months after the proclamation of Philippine independence at Kawit, weeks before the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish war — it has printed under two colonial regimes, a commonwealth, a dictatorship, and every republic since. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
A serial survivor: three documented closures — March 15, 1930; September 23, 1972; July 23, 1999 — and three documented revivals — 1945, February 5, 1986, and October 11, 1999, the last timed to the paper’s own founding anniversary — an institutional biography built from restarts. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
The paper’s own dead at Plaza Miranda: Manila Times photographer Ben Roxas was among the nine killed when grenades struck the Liberal Party rally of August 21, 1971 — the newspaper’s documented stake in the event this wiki’s entry on the Plaza Miranda Bombing records. (Wikipedia — Plaza Miranda bombing)
Verified documentary data:
Founded: October 11, 1898, by Thomas Gowan, an Englishman resident in the Philippines; first issue of two leaves, four pages
Ownership chain: Gowan sold to George Sellner in 1899 (staying on as business manager); acquired by an American businessman in 1902; reacquired by Sellner in 1905; bought by Thomas C. Kinney in 1907; owned by Manuel L. Quezon 1919–1921; acquired by sugar magnate George Fairchild in 1921 and by Jacob Rosenthal in 1926
Offices: moved from Escolta Street to the Cosmopolitan Building on July 25, 1914; the building burned December 10, 1928, the offices moving to Intramuros
First closure: March 15, 1930 — the paper unpublished until its 1945 reopening after World War II, then sold to Chino Roces
Roces era: largest-circulating Philippine newspaper by 1950; Roces arrested and the paper ordered shut September 23, 1972, in the martial-law media closure; Roces died September 30, 1988
Revival: reopened February 5, 1986, several days before the People Power Revolution; acquired by John Gokongwei in 1989
1999 crisis: a story calling President Joseph Estrada an “unwitting godfather” in a NAPOCOR–IMPSA transaction; Estrada’s libel suit filed March 9, 1999; the owners’ front-page apology and the editors’ and writers’ resignations; sale to Katrina Legarda and Reghis Romero on July 20, 1999; third closure July 23, 1999; reopening October 11, 1999
2001 onward: acquired by Mark Jimenez on May 14, 2001; sold to Dante Ang on August 8, 2001; published today by The Manila Times Publishing Corp. with Ang as chairman emeritus
Market position: now about fourth in broadsheet circulation, behind the Inquirer, the Bulletin, and the Philippine Star
Recent record: in April 2025 the House Majority Leader filed a cyberlibel suit over the paper’s “Oplan Horus” report (Wikipedia — The Manila Times, Wikipedia — Journalism during the Marcos dictatorship)

Usage Scenarios

1. Teaching the American-era English Press

The Times is the entry point for the English-language press the American regime brought: an 1898 founding by a resident Englishman, a readership built through the Assembly and Commonwealth eras, and the ownership succession — Sellner, Kinney, Quezon himself — that shows how personally held the era’s newspapers were. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

2. Researching the Martial-Law Media Closure

The September 23, 1972 shutdown is the paper’s central political fact: ordered shut as Marcos’s forces enforced martial law across 16 national dailies, 292 radio stations, and 7 television stations, its publisher Chino Roces among the first hundred detained from the priority arrest list — the record this wiki’s entry on journalism during the Marcos dictatorship carries. (Wikipedia — Journalism during the Marcos dictatorship)

3. Tracing Ownership and Editorial Independence

The paper’s owners are a syllabus of Philippine political history — a future Commonwealth president (Quezon, 1919–1921), the dictatorship’s jailed publisher (Roces), an Estrada associate (Jimenez, 2001), and a Gloria Macapagal Arroyo publicist (Ang, 2001) — the documented cases for studying what ownership does to a newsroom. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

4. Following the Postwar Roces Revival

The 1945 rebirth and the 1950 circulation record make the Times the reference case of the postwar press boom — and Roces’s own later career, from jailed publisher to open protest figure honored at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, the press-resistance arc this wiki’s dictatorship-era entry documents. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times, Wikipedia — Journalism during the Marcos dictatorship)

5. Studying Libel as Press Pressure

The 1999 crisis — suit, apology, resignations, sale, closure — and the 2025 cyberlibel suit give researchers two dated instances, a generation apart, of the same instrument: litigation used against the paper’s reporting. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

Strategies

Reopen at the political turn: each revival met a regime change — the 1945 liberation, the February 5, 1986 reopening on the eve of People Power, the October 11, 1999 restart on the founding anniversary — timing as the survival strategy of a paper that cannot publish through dictatorships. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
The owner as the paper’s politics: from Quezon’s 1919–21 ownership to the 2001 sales, the Times has turned over with its proprietors — the structural fact behind every question about its editorial line. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
Apology under pressure, at documented cost: the 1999 front-page apology ended the libel fight and cost the newsroom its editors — the standing Philippine case study of accommodation and its price. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
The founding date as brand: “Trusted since 1898” converts a discontinuous publication record into a continuous identity — the commemorative strategy that sustains the oldest-extant claim. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
For researchers: date every claim to its carrier — the 1930–1945 gap, the 1972–1986 gap, and the July–October 1999 gap are publication interruptions the record states plainly, and continuity language should acknowledge them. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

Security and Safety Measures

Martial law as the terminal risk: the September 23, 1972 closure — the paper shut by proclamation and its publisher detained by dawn — is the textbook exhibit of concentrated state power over the press, the shutdown documented at scale in this wiki’s dictatorship-era entry. (Wikipedia — Journalism during the Marcos dictatorship)
Litigation as economic coercion: the March 9, 1999 libel suit’s documented sequence — apology, resignations, sale, closure within months — and the 2025 cyberlibel filing show the legal system’s use as a pressure instrument short of censorship. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)
The journalist at the political rally: Ben Roxas’s death at Plaza Miranda on August 21, 1971 — a press photographer killed covering a proclamation rally — is the paper’s standing entry in the journalist-safety record of political assignments. (Wikipedia — Plaza Miranda bombing)
For researchers: the paper’s own account of its early ownership rests on a thin documentary base — several proprietors go unnamed in the record (“an American businessman,” 1902) — so ownership claims should be dated and attributed. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

Historical Context

The Times was founded in the interval between two sovereignties: Manila was occupied, the revolution was in the field, and on October 11, 1898 Thomas Gowan began an English paper for the regime arriving with the army. Its first half-century ran through private hands — Sellner, the unnamed American of 1902, Kinney, Quezon himself, Fairchild, Rosenthal — and through the first closure of March 15, 1930, which left the title dark for fifteen years spanning the Japanese occupation. The 1945 reopening and the sale to Chino Roces began the paper’s greatest era: the largest circulation in the country by 1950, and a publisher who would be arrested when Proclamation No. 1081’s enforcement closed the presses on September 23, 1972. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times, Wikipedia — Journalism during the Marcos dictatorship)

The revival of February 5, 1986 — days before People Power installed the government whose Executive Secretary, Joker Arroyo, had spent the dictatorship defending its prisoners — opened the modern sequence: the Gokongwei purchase in 1989, the Estrada libel crisis of 1999 with its apology, resignations, July 23 closure and October 11 reopening, the Jimenez and Ang purchases of 2001, and the current Manila Times Publishing Corp. era under chairman emeritus Dante Ang — a paper of roughly fourth-place circulation whose principal asset is the date on its masthead, and whose recent history includes the April 2025 cyberlibel suit over its “Oplan Horus” reporting. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

Challenges and Controversies

The First Closure and the “Oldest Extant” Claim

The record states the first shutdown plainly — March 15, 1930, “until 1945, when the paper re-opened after World War II” — which makes the oldest-extant claim a claim of identity across a fifteen-year publication gap: the same title, reincarnated. Historians accept the continuity of name and succession; strict continuity of publication there was not. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

The 1999 Estrada Libel Suit

The documented sequence — the “unwitting godfather” story on a NAPOCOR–IMPSA transaction, the March 9, 1999 suit, the owners’ front-page apology over the newsroom’s objection, the editors’ resignations, the July sale and closure — remains the post-1986 press’s standard case study of a sitting president’s legal power over a newspaper, and the reason the paper’s independence that year is debated. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

The Ownership Politics

A paper owned by Quezon (1919–1921), bought in 2001 by an Estrada associate and sold months later to an Arroyo publicist invites the standing question of every Philippine broadsheet: whose paper is it? The record documents the proprietors; the editorial consequences are argued from each case. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)

The War-Years Record

The account of the occupation era is thin — the closure of 1930–1945 spans it, and the record consulted here documents no separate occupation-era history of the title — so the paper’s Japanese-period story, unlike its martial-law story, remains to be documented. (Wikipedia — The Manila Times)