The origin of “Juan de la Cruz”

The name Juan de la Cruz has been part and parcel of Filipino culture and even national identity. Almost every day, we hear and read this name in the media whenever the latter reports or opines about the travails and foibles of the ordinary Filipino. Even the rock band that pioneered what came to be known as Pinoy Rock was named after this famous appellation. If the Northern Americans have Uncle Sam or John Doe to represent them, the Filipinos have Juan de la Cruz.

But did you know that Juan de la Cruz was of Scottish origin?

Juan de la Cruz was coined by Robert McCulloch-Dick, the editor and publisher of The Philippines Free Press magazine which he founded in 1908. McCulloch-Dick was born on 22 January 1873 in Edinburgh, Scotland. At the age of 19, he emigrated to the United States of América where he did odd jobs and entered into other ventures. It was in the US where he became a journalist. When word came out that English-speaking newsmen were needed in Filipinas (its US conquerors had already renamed the archipelago as The Philippine Islands), he immediately procured a ticket and quickly set sail for Manila.

Upon his arrival, McCulloch-Dick found employment as a reporter with the Cablenews-American, one of the pioneer US-owned newspapers in the country. In 1902, he transferred to the then US-owned The Manila Times as a court reporter. A keen observer, McCulloch-Dick noticed the frequency with which the name Juan de la Cruz appeared on police blotters, court dockets, and baptismal certificates. It was during his stint at the Manila Times when he began using that name as the “Filipino everyman” in his reportage. Later on, after establishing his own magazine (The Philippines Free Press), he began writing small verses about Juan de la Cruz. The character was often depicted narrating petty crimes committed by the locals.

Juan de la Cruz is associated with the image of a naïve-looking man wearing a salacót, a camisa de chino, native trousers, and slippers. Jorge Pineda, a resident cartoonist of The Philippines Free Press, first drew the image of Juan in 1912. To this day, media people continue referring to the Filipino everyman as Juan de la Cruz.