Worthy to mention is the Filipinas en La Exposición Universal de Barcelona, The Philippines in the Universal Exposition of Barcelona, a speech delivered by Graciano Lopez-Jaena on February 25, 1889 at the Ateneo de Barcelona. Lopez Jaena mentioned in his speech that the Philippine Islands, accidentally discovered by Magellan, was annexed to the crown by Miguel Lopez de Legaspi after five unsuccessful expedition, by means of a vastly superior political method, very different from the customs of the times, when conquest and territorial annexations were based upon force and carried out by extermination in the manner of Pizarro in Peru and Hernan Cortes in Mexico.
Lopez-Jaena also explained that the Philippine islands, known in the olden times as Catagalugan and Cavisaya-an, was renamed the Philippines after the conquest by the immortal Villalobos, in honor of the then prince of Asturias, who later became the great Philip II of Spain. He also said that “the fertility of the soil is such that her fauna and her flora constitute a real prodigality that some say is better than that of the American world, which is replete with wonders and enchantments and the wonderful grouping of those scattered Spanish Islands in the east is like a banquet that with a noble hand, Provident nature has pinned close to the breast of Mother Spain, and that “Spain is the Mother Country, and the Philippines, her child.”
Those in power have made efforts to exhibit the backwardness of that country and to mislead public opinion for their own political interest. They have not shown the progress which in the last twenty years the country has achieved
Had it not been for Juan Luna's immortal genius which contributed to that contest his painting entitled España Guiando á Filipinas en el Camino del Progreso, Spain Leading the Philippines on the Road to Progress; done with masterful but light strokes and revealing a genius brush whose brave colors produce marvelous efforts, surprising brave perspectives, and one of the enchantments of art and glory of the Philippines, there would have been no exhibit from the Islands worth seeing, but he was so upset because Juan Luna's Spoliarium was not exhibited.
Before long, however, the Filipinos in Madrid began to suspect more sinister motives from the committee in Manila headed by the archbishop, when they heard of the plan to bring along Filipino artisans who would demonstrate their craftsmanship. They rightly feared that the opportunity would be used to bring along people from less civilized groups to show Spaniards the backwardness of the Philippines and its unfairness for progressive reforms.
The reality was even worse: the Igorots from northern Luzon and the Moros from Jolo had no crafts to demonstrate, but were rather there simply to be exhibited like animals in a zoo. In May, a Muslim woman by the name of Basalia died of pneumonia. The Filipino colony in Madrid was furious. Lopez-Jaena published a communication in one of the Madrid newspapers in the Filipino's name, denouncing the conditions under which the Filipinos were being “exhibited,” and pursued the argument fiercely in various newspapers.
Moreover, he described the friars as parasites sucking and feeding upon the organic, social, moral, and political life of the Malayan nation, all powerful creator of nothing, of retrogression, of the misfortunes of these Islands in the Orient. He has the power to open the gates to knowledge, to science, and to morality, but he teaches fanaticism, infuses idiocy, and educate by prostituting knowledge, and that countries ruled by friars, modern life is not possible, they are not preserving the Archipelago for Spain, but the country is preserve for the friars.
The friars are the only ones who are benefited of the press in the Philippines. They censure and condemn all efforts to uplift the natives of the Philippines. They hate enlightenment because representing interest antagonistic to the laws of human progress, they are not able any longer to fight privately for their cause which is indefensible.
To give a decent front of their opposition, they invoke the interest of the church, forgetting that in doing so, they display their lack of faith in the words of Christ who said that against the Church, the gates of hell would not prevail. The pres is not the gate of hell much less is it the spark which ignites, but the very lamp that gives light.
The fight is on between friars and Filipinos. It is not a fight for or against religion; it is not a fight for or against a country. It is a fight for life, one defeating his exploitation and the other, fighting for his right to live in these modern times, to a life of freedom, to a life of democracy.
