A Note on Information Sources on Philippine Business History

Abstract

Studies on Philippine industrialization usually focus on overall performance, structural change, and other statistically comprehensive aggregates. If non-statistical matters are dealt with, they are largely confined to government policy. These aspects are undoubtedly important, but hardly any studies deal with participants in industrialization (the only exception is John Carroll, The Filipino Manufacturing Entrepreneur: Agent and Product of Change, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1965). This is said to be due to the limited availability of company histories, biographies, and other micro data. But for the Philippines, such information is more abundant than generally thought. I describe below the sources of information I could use for my research on major manufacturing companies in the early 1970s. Since I was primarily concerned with tracing their history, this note might be of interest to those who want to trace business history from more recent times, but might be of limited use to those who are concerned with companies which existed at one time but have since disappeared. Especially for those who are concerned with Japanese companies before the Pacific War, an en tirely new search method