In 1878, the Spanish Government in Madrid, recognizing the need for a communications system that will interconnect the Philippines with the rest of the world invited tenders (bids) for the establishment of a telecommunications link between this country and Hong Kong. The British firm, Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company (now Cable and Wireless) won the bid obtaining, in the process, a 40-year concession to lay down and operate a submarine telegraph cable between Luzon and the British Grown Colony.
Laying of the undersea cable for the proposed system was undertaken by the company’s cable ship CALABRIA which completed the work on May 2,1880 with the Philippine end of the 535-nautical mile cable landing at Bolinao, then a part of Zambales and now part of Pangasinan. From that point an overland cable was laid all the way to Manila, 160 miles away. Six days later cable communications between Manila and Hong Kong was officially opened to the public.
In 1898, however, during the height of the Filipino revolt against Spanish colonial rule, the company converted the Bolinao. Manila aerial cable to submarine to avoid the frequent cuttings that It suffered from the Revolutionary Forces- During the naval engagement between the Spanish and American Forces in Manila Bay on May 1,1898, however, the undersea cable was again cut disrupting once wore the Manila-Hong Kong telegraph line. Finally restored after sometime the line continued to be in operation for many more years until it was again interrupted when the Japanese invaded the Philippines during World War ll.
During the period of the Japanese Occupation (1942-1945) Eastern Extension suspended its operation in the resuming it only after the end of the war. In 1952.Philippine Congress granted the company a franchise to continue its operation as a local corporation.
Patrick Abboud
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