GRACIANO LOPEZ JAENA AT 150

In these dangerous times, ‘neglected’ hero-journalist could get killed
BY HAZEL P. VILLA

ILOILO City – If Graciano Lopez Jaena, the "Demosthenes of the Philippines" and the "trailblazer" of the Great Triumvirate of the Propaganda Movement, wielded his pen today and wrote as bravely, his name could be in the list of Filipino journalists killed in the line of duty.
This was the common observation of journalists and historians here as they step up preparations for the 150th birth anniversary of the hero at his hometown of Jaro District here today, December 18.
December winds whipping up the many Philippine flags and streamers announcing the event at Jaro Plaza and the frenzy of cleaning, painting, and landscaping seem surreal as Ilonggos lament the neglect of the memory of this hero whose ideas and rhetoric ignited a revolution together with Dr. Jose Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar.
Previous Lopez Jaena birth anniversary celebrations set on the erroneous date of December 17 has already been corrected by the research of local historians and the public plaza of Jaro that was called Plaza Rizal for more than eight decades has been renamed Lopez Jaena Park by the Iloilo City Council only in 1986 despite having the life-size monument of Lopez Jaena standing there since the early 1900s.
ACHIEVEMENTS OF A NEGLECTED HERO
"The neglect of Lopez Jaena is indeed a sad fact. For while unhonored and unsung in death, in life Lopez Jaena was a very willing patriot who never demurred to serve nor counted the cost in his service to the motherland.

As a matter of fact, historians agree that he was the first Filipino patriot to step into the Propaganda field to seek reform for his countrymen," wrote Ilonggo historian and former vice governor Demy Sonza in his paper, "Lopez Jaena Deserves Higher Honors."
The Ilonggo hero, who, at age 18 wrote "Fray Botod" that exposed the abuses of Spanish friars, is acknowledged as the "trailblazer" of the Propaganda Movement -- having reached Spain first in 1880 and having made a name for himself as champion of the Philippine cause there.
The other firebrands of the Propaganda Movement were Dr. Jose Rizal who arrived in Spain in 1882 and Marcelo del Pilar who joined them in 1889. This triumvirate pushed the Spanish government for reforms in the Philippines and in the process, sowed the seeds for a revolution back home through their writings smuggled by a propaganda committee.
Lopez Jaena's writings and oratory brought to the attention of Spain the pathetic socio-political situation in the Philippines and the call for reforms became even louder when Lopez-Jaena in his mid twenties founded and became the first editor of the newspaper La Solidaridad in February 1889, the mouthpiece of the Propaganda Movement.
"Whether writing for periodicals or speaking from the platform, Lopez Jaena extolled the virtues of the Filipino people and the beauty and wealth of Las Islas Filipinas. He advocated freedom of speech, of the press, of peaceful assembly, and of commerce, so that the Philippines might move on the path of progress.

He wrote prolifically for at least fifteen different periodicals in Europe from Spain to England," wrote Sonza who is also the co-chair of the Western Visayas Historical and Cultural Council.
JAENA AND THE FILIPINO JOURNALIST
What Lopez Jaena stood and fought for as he fanned the flames of freedom in his home country while in Spain may not have cost him his life but the same fervor in the present times of the journalist living dangerously could have bonnet-clad, motorcycle men pumping bullets into him.
"Bear in mind that journalism is now a risky profession. If he (Lopez Jaena) were here at this time, he could have been killed. Why was he free to write all these things?
Remember that in the 1880’s when Lopez Jaena arrived in Spain, the spirit of liberalism was prevailing but the Philippines was so far that ideas on the freedom of speech did not reach it. He wanted to bring the advocacy of freedom to the Philippines from Spain," said Sonza in an interview at Jaro Plaza Thursday while he was overseeing the sprucing up of the hero's monument.
The writings of Lopez Jaena were less fiery than his orations, but they were "no less beautiful, clear, direct, logical, courageous and hard hitting," wrote Sonza in his third edition of the Lopez Jaena biography, "Mightier than the Sword, A Biography of Graciano Lopez Jaena" that was first published in 2002 here.
Reading through the life of Lopez Jaena the reformer and journalist, one sees a pattern of hewing to the truth and what is good for the Filipinos no matter the cost.
Lopez Jaena's scathing articles and oratories about the abuses of the friars as well as his call for reforms from the Spanish government led to his getting persecuted and he had to flee for his life -- forcing him to sail to Spain where the journalist grabbed the sprouting liberalism there as his stage for exposing the evils hounding his motherland.
Sonza said that to make Lopez Jaena stop writing about the abuses and excesses of the friars, the bishop of Oviedo offered him a good position that would comfortably support him all his life. To this offer, Lopez Jaena answered that his life belonged to the Philippines and not to the religious orders.
"My intelligence and my pen belong to the Philippines and not to any foreign country," Lopez Jaena was reported to have said when a Spanish-language periodical in New York, through the American Embassy in Madrid, offered him its editorship with an initial salary of $200 a month plus shares in the profits.
"Filipino journalists should keep alive the zeal of Lopez Jaena's pen that exposes the truth and condemns abuse of power. Threats, harassments, and death are among the dangers a journalist faces when he writes and some people don't like it. It is one of the perils of the job. If Lopez Jaena is alive today, he dies from a bullet or poverty," said the Iloilo Chapter of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines in a statement.
Lopez Jaena's death was not at all spectacular as befits a hero. He died of tuberculosis on January 20, 1896 in a hospital ran by the Daughters of Charity in Barcelona.
The Ilonggo hero, first to arrive in Spain to launch the Propaganda Movement was also the first to die -- buried the following day in an unmarked grave at the Cementerio del Sud-Oeste in the same Spanish city.