ILOILO City – The Graciano Lopez Jaena shrine will finally be completed with funding from the city government.
On Dec. 16, Mayor Jerry Treñas and the Dr. Graciano Lopez Jaena Foundation Inc. (DGLJFI) led the groundbreaking ceremony for the resumption of the construction of the Ilonggo hero’s shrine on Fajardo Street, Jaro district.
“Nagapasalamat gid ako nga nakakita kita sang pondo. Initial fund ini nga napangitaan ta, P4 million ini nga ibutang ta diri. If necessary we will be adding more fund para nga ma-develop gid ini,” said Treñas.
According to the mayor, the shrine will also serve as a public library open 24 hours.
“Masyado ka importante ang isa ka shrine para sa isa ka national hero. We should be proud of Graciano Lopez Jaena. We should be proud of what he did for our country,” Treñas stressed.
Today is a public holiday in this southern city and Iloilo province by virtue of Republic Act 6155 honoring the birth of Lopez Jaena who would have turned 164 years old.
Since it is a pandemic, the celebration will only be held virtual.
DGLJFI president Mia Lopez-Cruz, in behalf of the Dr. Graciano Lopez Jaena Foundation, Inc. and the descendants of Dr. Graciano Lopez Jaena, expressed appreciation and gratitude to the city mayor.
She described the resumption of the construction of the shrine as an “advanced birthday gift for our hero.”
“It has been a long standing dream and aspiration of the foundation to have a structure built here at the birthplace of our beloved lone hero from Iloilo City, Graciano Lopez y Jaena,” said Lopez-Cruz.
Foundation chairman Demy Sonza, a historian, writer and former member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Iloilo, previously said that for Lopez Jaena patriotism, the least that Ilonggos could do is complete a shrine to ensure that Lopez Jaena’s legacy lives on.
The shrine was not completed because the foundation is struggling financially. The shrine, the construction of which started a few years ago, is only 40 percent complete.
Lopez Jaena was considered the “first Filipino propagandist” in the struggle for freedom from Spain.
Historians regard him, along with Dr. Jose Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, as the triumvirate of propagandists that challenged Spanish rule in the Philippines.
Lopez Jaena wrote the satirical story “Fray Botod” which depicted a fat and lecherous priest.
Botod’s false piety “always had the Virgin and God on his lips no matter how unjust and underhanded his acts are.” He reaped the friars’ fury and thus left Jaro for Spain in 1879.
In Spain, Lopez Jaena founded and edited La Solidaridad, a newspaper that aimed to galvanize Filipinos to into demanding independence. He also gave fiery, nationalistic speeches. There he met Rizal and del Pilar.
Believing that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” Lopez Jaena personally conveyed his demand for freedom in a speech before Spanish officials in Madrid, Spain on April 27, 1883.
He died of tuberculosis at age 39 on Jan. 20, 1896 in Barcelona, Spain and was buried by the Sisters of Charity in an unmarked grave at the Cementerio Sud-Oeste./PN
