From Santos' Banaag at Sikat: "Ah sayang ang panahon ng Kastila!

Kung noon, sa dagat pa'y sinunog nang disin ang mga kung anu-anong librong napagkikita ko ngayon sa Libreria de Colon, Agencia Editorial, Manila Filatelico, sa kay V. Castillo, atbp." (p. 28) [Pity the Spanish times are over! At that time, the books which I see today at the Libreria de Colon, Agencia Editorial, Manila Filatelico, and V. Castillo etc. would long have been burned at sea.] I don't know if anyone has written a history of Philippine bookstores since the Spanish era. (I hope there is.) So I tried looking for some information on these bookstores in the net and came up with something from ebay France, a postcard dated 1909 printed by the Libreria de Colon, Manila (Look at the second picture, left hand side).

A cursory look at Filipiniana bibliography shows that another bookstore, Manila Filatelico, was also active in publishing important works of the the early 20th century. For ex., Hermenegildo Cruz, Faustino Aguilar and also Rizal's Schiller translation.