TODAY, Ilonggos salute a great journalist who left a legacy of courage, sacrifice and love of country. In the pantheon of Filipino heroes (national level) during the Philippine Revolution against Spain, there was only one Ilonggo freedom fighter – Graciano Lopez Jaena.
His first major work, Fray Botod, was a stinging attack against abusive priests who, in those times, no one dared criticize. It was dangerous but Lopez Jaena, unafraid, came out swinging with it. He chose the pen and oratory as weapons against repression and the abuses of Spanish rulers and powerful clerico-fascists.
Lopez Jaena trained in Manila for a medical career and though he was not a doctor, tried to serve the poor and sick of Iloilo with what he had learned as a medical apprentice. Through it, he saw poverty so unthinkable. But most of all, he saw how abusive the friars were. This he never left out in his writings.
In Spain, he was part of Filipino expatiates who campaigned for independence for the motherland. With Jose Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, they published La Solidaridad, the organ of rising Filipino intellectuals who criticized the way the country was being run by the Spaniards.
Lopez Jaena’s statues at the Jaro Plaza and the National Press Club building remind us of this great patriot’s heroism. He showed his genius as a communicator in the struggle for freedom. His greatness cannot be disputed.
