S4E4: The Bicycle in Peace and War

The Petan 1895. It was Jose Rizal's year number three as a prisoner in the sleepy town that would be his final peaceful pit stop before his grisly end. In exile, the future national hero was a busy man. He collected specimens of plants and animals, he set up business associations, he ran a school and a farm and a hospital. Rizal though, was certain that one thing would make his life in Mindanao that much easier. So when he sent a letter to his mom on December 18, he wrote, "Please buy me a second hand bicycle, neither very bad nor very good, and which would not cost more than 100 pesos. Pepe Leva could do me the favor of buying one to use in my trips to the town." But what kind of bike was Dr. Jose P. Rizal looking for? Was it an ordinary or was it a safety? In the last decade of the 19th century, the bicycle world was split into two warring camps. In one corner were the OGs, coasting on roads aboard bicycles they called the ordinary. These were the kind of bikes you see in old old pictures, the ones with the giant front wheel and the little wheel on the back. Hop aboard one of these contraptions and you would tower almost as high as a rider on horseback. And because the pedals stuck out the sides of the front wheel, you could transfer all your weight and all your power directly to your bicycle. Purists loved it, the ordinary was efficient, the ordinary was fast, and the ordinary was sturdy. In the other corner was a rising new breed of cyclists who swore by safety bicycles. Unlike the high wheel ordinary, the safety had two wheels that were the same size. The cranks and pedals sat in the middle and when you pedaled, a chain attached to the cranks would move the rear wheel and propel the bike forward. Like its nickname promised, it was much much safer than the ordinary. OG cyclists despised it, the safety was slow, the safety was boring and the safety took all the fun out of biking. Of course we know that in the end, the ordinary would fade away to become a curious footnote in history while the safety would become the bike we're all familiar with today. But in the 1890s, the debate between the two types of bikes and their fans, flew thick and fast. And we will never know if Rizal ever preferred the ordinary or the safety because in the end, he never got his bike. Welcome to the Colonial Department, the podcast where we take long lost stories from Philippine colonial history and bring them to life. In this episode, strap on your helmets and get ready to sweat as we present a short history of the bicycle in the Philippines. This is Season 4, Episode 4, The Bicycle in Peace and War. Across the world in the last years of the 1800s, their devils hopped aboard bikes and tore across roads in fierce races that drew enormous crowds. Men, women and children lined the streets, eager to catch a glimpse of the speedy madmen and their strange machines. Spanish-controlled Philippines was a no exception. In lunata, young and rich mestizos showed off their shiny new two-wheeled toys imported from abroad. During festival season, they raced and very often crashed, falling out of their high wheels as they tried to round the corners. Wrote an American visitor to Manila. After the races, a beautiful Spanish maiden, whose eyes were so crossed that she must have easily mixed up the winning bicycle with the tail ender, distributed the prizes. And the police had hard work to keep the crowd from overwhelming the center of attraction. A new century came along with a new colonizer, but the bicycle races remained as popular as ever. Cycling became a showcase event in the Manila Carnival, which also had competitions in track and field, baseball, bowling, boxing, rowing, polo, golf, football, volleyball and more. The Manila Carnival, which was first held in 1908, essentially became ground zero for Philippine competitive sports as the business expo and beauty queen festival also became an athletic spectacle. The grounds where the carnival was held would later become the site of the Rizal Memorial Stadium. In the American period, bicycles also went through a transformation of their own, safety bicycles, which had lower frames, standardized air filled rubber tires, and later on, gear sprockets, made the high wheel ordinary obsolete. Because of all these technological innovations, bikes, which were originally playthings for rich risk takers, became a sensible transportation option for just about everyone. There is a photo that was uploaded in Flickr last year. In it, someone who looks like an elegantly dressed Filipina at the turn of the century, complete with puffy blouse and long skirt, poses with her pride and joy. A safety bicycle with a step-through frame, a mudguard atop the rear wheel, and gently curved handlebars with a bell mounted on the right side. According to the uploader, this photo was supposedly taken in Manila on or before 1904. The caption for the photo? Hi, sorry to interrupt. This is Leo, creator of the Colonial Department. If you are liking the episode so far, I'd really appreciate it if you click the subscribe or follow button for this podcast on the platform of your choice. Leave us a rating and review too. All of that will really go a long way in helping support this pod. And now, let's get back to some more Philippine history. Now that the bicycle was no longer a novelty, it became part of the ordinary lives of people making their way across the bustling city of Manila. According to an ordinance issued in 1902, bike owners had to register their bikes with the government for $1.50 a year. Instead of a license plate, the government issued a metal tag which you had to attach to your frame. Other regulations governed the use of bicycles. If cycling after dark, you had to carry a lamp. Bells or whistles were also required and you had to use them whenever you approached any street intersection or when you were coming up behind a person or another vehicle. Government records show that around 2,000 bicycles were registered from 1904 to 1905, but I guess they became so numerous that by 1906, the colonial authorities dropped the registration requirement altogether. As for bikes popped up in the papers, here's one from Squires Bingham, which is a sporting goods store that still exists up to this day. It had a copy like that. Who could resist picking a bicycle up? Because of their practicality and convenience, immigrants to the Philippines found the bicycle an essential tool for the buy and sell businesses they set up in their newly adopted country. But they couldn't afford cars or trucks and so they hopped on bicycles to peddle their wares. In the north side of the Pasig River, a sausage factory run by Jewish immigrants hired fellow Jews to sell longanisa to clients like the Philippine General Hospital. In the torrid tropical heat, these salesmen, one of whom was a jurist in a past life, had to cycle quickly to customers before the meat could spoil. Another entrepreneur whose life story is intimately tied to the bicycle is John Gokongwei Jr. A descendant of immigrants from China, Gokongwei grew up in the lap of luxury in pre-war Cebu. But when he was just 13, his dad died and creditors seized their fancy house and all their properties. What did Gokongwei do next? Here's a rare media interview with him, conducted by CNBC International back in 2007. Under the shadow of a world war, Gokongwei had to hustle in the streets of Manila, peddling furiously through the streets to sell candles, soaps, cigarettes, and other wartime goods. At present, the bicycle is a beloved symbol of the Gokongwei Group, the multinational conglomerate that John Gokongwei Jr. founded. Full disclosure, my day job is with the Gokongwei Group, but they didn't sponsor this episode in any way, and in all my years in the company, I've never won the bicycle-shaped trophy they give out to their most innovative employees. You know who else found the bicycle indispensable? Japanese soldiers. In 1941, as the Japanese invasion fleet landed along the coast of Lingayan to begin their takeover of the Philippines, one-third of Masaharu Homa's infantry had bicycles. It may sound oddly unintimidating to us now to imagine ranks and ranks of soldiers peddling to battle aboard bicycles. But it is a calculated decision by Homa, the poet general who was awarded the military cross during World War I when he served among British forces. Japan had few stockpiles of petroleum, and bicycles were an effective, low-cost, and as we'll see, devastating way to quickly move troops across stubborn tropical terrain. If the Germans carried out their blitzkrieg using tanks, the Japanese perfected their own version, a lightning-fast assault aboard bikes. They first used this to great effect during the invasion of China in the 1930s and pulled out this tactic once again when World War II swung around. A military historian wrote that, in Malaya and Singapore, the defending Allied troops were overtaken and outmaneuvered by Japanese bicycle infantry. The bike blitzkrieg proved to be surprisingly effective. On December 26th, to spare Manila, MacArthur proclaims that an open city, Manila is nonetheless uneasy and with good cause, for the Japanese ignore the proclamation. Japanese troops on two wheels fingered prominently in the occupation of major Philippine cities. As sunlight creeped ominously on the dawn of January 2, 1942, Japanese troops aboard bikes and light motorcycles poured into Manila. Eighteen days later, Japanese cyclists in uniform joined the victory march across Davao, riding proudly beside horsemen, tanks, cannons, and marching soldiers. Wartime put the squeeze on Philippine life. The military commandeered stocks of oil and fuel and cars. Meanwhile, oil shipments from Japan were sunk by the American Navy. The fuel shortage became a real crisis. Trams and other forms of public transportation began to break down. To get around the city, bikes became increasingly important. It is said that even American spy Chick Parsons traveled around on a bike while he was disguised as a priest. But there were so little bikes left in the country. In 1942, Manila, for example, there were only twelve thousand seven hundred fifty-one bicycles in a city of almost a million people. As a Jewish refugee observed, even if you owned a rusty second hand bicycle, you had to make sure to lock it with heavy chains and the padlock, otherwise it would get stolen. As we close our short history of the bicycle in the Philippines from the 1890s all the way to the Japanese occupation, we see how in the 1940s the bike became essential for occupiers, soldiers, entrepreneurs, ordinary folks, and even spies and guerrillas. In those terrible years of World War II, the bicycle was the great equalizer. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Colonial Department. I referred to many sources in the making of this episode. David Hurley's book, The Lost Cyclist, provided a lot of the background on the development of early bicycles. Gerald Jem's book, Sport and the American Occupation with the Philippines, talked about cycling sports while Frank Ephraim's Escape to Manila gave many glimpses of bicycles in wartime Manila. Howie Severino's article on Results Bicycle, Paul Heron's summary on Filipino Cycling History, he read Fernandes' children's book on John Gokongwe Jr. Francis K. Dangwa's overview on World War II transportation in Manila, and Lieutenant Commander Alan C. Hedricks looked back at Japanese bicycle infantry added even more relevant info. Quotes from sources were read by Anya Ong. Interview with John Gokongwe Jr. is from CNBC International. The Colonial Department was written and produced by Leo Mangubat. Follow us on Instagram at the Colonial Department.