That fecund decade-and-a-half culminating in 1986 gave our people that sense of being one, of having come from the same roots, that they needed to break free and come alive. That group had a superstar cast: Rizal, the scholar, del Pilar, the politician and political analyst, Naning Ponce, Galicano Apacible, the brothers Luna, Julio Llorente, Pepe Panganiban, Gregorio Sancianco, Jose Alejandrino and many others, including its most remarkable member, a dropout from the Seminario de Jaro in Iloilo, Graciano Lopez-Jaena. Graciano, as we know, was the founder and first editor of the La Solidaridad and also prime orator of the Movement. Rizal was the superior scholar, del Pilar the deadlier satirist, but in oratory - even in plain harangue - everyone deferred to Graciano.
Gen. Pepe Alejandrino, one of the very few of that generation who lived to tell its story, recalls Graciano as "an impulsive and fanatic orator of liberty who held his audience spellbound with his eloquence and natural talents." As a campaigner for reforms (the movement, we are constantly reminded, was not secessionist), Graciano was prolific (he antedated del Pilar in Spain by some eight years, Rizal by two) and outspoken.
In 1889, he would speak bitterly against the conduct of the Philippine participation in the First Universal Exposition held in Barcelona the previous year in which four Filipinos - who were being exhibited - had died, one of pneumonia. He would also denounce the poor state of education in the Philippines, the tribute and compulsory labor. But for all his great talent (even Rizal conceded that Graciano was the most gifted Filipino he had known even superior to himself) and precious contribution to the cause, Graciano was a complex flawed personality. His life, in fact, should be rich material for a fine melodrama of that era of our history. As his picture will suggest he was frail and, according to a fellow expatriate, he dressed slovenly. Gen. Alejandrino believed that Graciano was "the most original and picturesque type among the Filipino reformer in Europe. He was a true Bohemian in the manner of Verlaine and others who have left eternal pain in a dreaming and carefree world."
Graciano was what we would nowadays a character. Even among that terribly gifted and sanguine band, he was a standout. He outargued, outwrote and outcaroused most of them. According to historian and biographer Carlos Quirino, Graciano was, in fact, our first certified hippie. He was by nature a rather disorganized person. At one time, Rizal, a triple exasperated, told him, "I wish you would apply yourself to cultivating your God - given talents for the greater glory of our country."
Whereupon, Graciano said, "You need not put a doctor's cape on a slave's shoulders." (Graciano had quit medical school at the University of Valencia).
We know now, largely through Dr. Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon's English translation of La Solidaridad - what passion, what love, went into the making of that journal. But do we know the kind of drama that had to be played to bring out in it the ringing rhetoric of Graciano Lopez-Jaena?
In 1889, he would speak bitterly against the conduct of the Philippine participation in the First Universal Exposition held in Barcelona the previous year in which four Filipinos - who were being exhibited - had died, one of pneumonia. He would also denounce the poor state of education in the Philippines, the tribute and compulsory labor. But for all his great talent (even Rizal conceded that Graciano was the most gifted Filipino he had known even superior to himself) and precious contribution to the cause, Graciano was a complex flawed personality. His life, in fact, should be rich material for a fine melodrama of that era of our history. As his picture will suggest he was frail and, according to a fellow expatriate, he dressed slovenly. Gen. Alejandrino believed that Graciano was "the most original and picturesque type among the Filipino reformer in Europe. He was a true Bohemian in the manner of Verlaine and others who have left eternal pain in a dreaming and carefree world."
Graciano was what we would nowadays a character. Even among that terribly gifted and sanguine band, he was a standout. He outargued, outwrote and outcaroused most of them. According to historian and biographer Carlos Quirino, Graciano was, in fact, our first certified hippie. He was by nature a rather disorganized person. At one time, Rizal, a triple exasperated, told him, "I wish you would apply yourself to cultivating your God - given talents for the greater glory of our country."
Whereupon, Graciano said, "You need not put a doctor's cape on a slave's shoulders." (Graciano had quit medical school at the University of Valencia).
We know now, largely through Dr. Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon's English translation of La Solidaridad - what passion, what love, went into the making of that journal. But do we know the kind of drama that had to be played to bring out in it the ringing rhetoric of Graciano Lopez-Jaena?
Again, Gen. Alejandrino tells story. "He was the editor of La Solidaridad, receiving for his compensation free house, meals, clothing and a little money for his minor expenses, but in order to make him write, most of the time they literally had to starve him out. He had the custom of going to a cafŽ upon waking up and remain there as long as he had money to spend for him. There they had to look for him and promise to pay his expenses provided that he would write his articles. Between cups and cups of drinks, they placed before him sheets of paper which he filled up with surprising ease."
Pretty soon the tragic flaw would catch up with Graciano. From time to time, he would go sulking at some imagined wrong and remain inconsolable for days. He would flare up at what he believed to be the moderate stance (he was after all, according to Jaime C. de Veyra, el luchador) of his colleagues. In 1891 he wrote Rizal a letter complaining against del Pilar and Ponce. Later on, he would plan on running for the Cortes. He also thought of going to the U.S. and then to Cuba. The remaining years of his life would be devoted to activities more relevant to Spanish politics than the Filipino reformist cause. Penniless, Graciano died in Barcelona in 1896.
I first wrote this piece for the Economic Monitor in the late 1970s.
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Pretty soon the tragic flaw would catch up with Graciano. From time to time, he would go sulking at some imagined wrong and remain inconsolable for days. He would flare up at what he believed to be the moderate stance (he was after all, according to Jaime C. de Veyra, el luchador) of his colleagues. In 1891 he wrote Rizal a letter complaining against del Pilar and Ponce. Later on, he would plan on running for the Cortes. He also thought of going to the U.S. and then to Cuba. The remaining years of his life would be devoted to activities more relevant to Spanish politics than the Filipino reformist cause. Penniless, Graciano died in Barcelona in 1896.
I first wrote this piece for the Economic Monitor in the late 1970s.
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