Grandstand of a Playing Park in Batangas, c. 1910
Below is a photograph of the grandstand at a playing park in what was probably the town of Batangas taken around the year 1910. The picture was extracted from a 1911 publication of the Bureau of Education entitled “Athletic Handbook for Philippine Public Schools.” The book provides details of the fledgling development of sports in the towns and provinces of the Philippines, primarily cultivated through the infantile public school system that the American Insular Government had set up.
The playing park itself was probably set up for baseball or athletics or both. Athletics had initially been introduced by American soldiers into the country, while baseball started to flourish primarily through teachers and the school system.
 |
| Image extracted from the 1911 publication "Athletic Handbook for Philippine Public Schools." |
Consequently, towns and provinces started setting up their own athletic associations and started likewise competing against each other. Whilst initially reluctant to participate in sports, Filipinos became more involved because of the burgeoning rivalries that started to develop between the teams of the different towns and provinces.
To get a better insight about developments in the era:
READ: “STCAA: Tracing the Athletic Association’s Humble Roots and Batangas’ Early Participation”
2 “Athletic Handbook for the Philippine Public Schools,” by the Bureau of Education, published 1911 in Manila, p. 45.