Bugasong to Barcelona and Beyond

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By Herman M. Lagon

Some books entertain, some inform, and a few quietly rearrange how we see ourselves. Bugasong to Barcelona: Life and Works of Felix Laureano, written by Francisco G. Villanueva, belongs to that rare third kind. I stumbled upon it, of all places, during the AI Fest Technical Conference 2025 at the Iloilo Convention Center, handed to me by filmmaker Emmanuel Lerona. While others spoke of codes and data points, I was drawn to a book on the first Filipino photographer. He belonged to a time when images were born not of screens but of patience, light and a searching eye. The contrast with today’s culture of instant posts and reels was striking.

That journey traces back to Bugasong, Antique, a town best known for its rivers and rice fields, not for producing global artists. Yet from this unlikely soil, a pioneer was born. From there rose Félix Laureano (1866–1952), son of a strong-willed Filipina and a Spanish friar. Contradiction was his birthright — colonial and native, privileged yet searching. Armed with curiosity and later a camera, he carved a name that stretched from Iloilo to Barcelona. Villanueva’s book makes sure we remember: Filipino artistry has always traveled far, even when borders tried to hold it back.

Villanueva doesn’t just stack facts and dates. He breathes life into Laureano’s journey — 15 years of research, archives in Spain and conversations with descendants. He plays the role of a stubborn teacher, rescuing a forgotten student from obscurity. Laureano, after all, was not just our first professional photographer. In 1895, he published Recuerdos de Filipinas in Barcelona — the first photobook by a Filipino. His 37 photos and essays showed not curiosities for colonizers but slices of everyday life: women by the river, children pounding rice, a funeral and a fiesta. To our eyes today, Laureano’s photographs feel at once intimate and unsettling. They tell us that history is not only written by revolution and decrees but also lived through weddings, funerals, laughter and labor. His lens captured the daily life that textbooks often overlook.

He was no bystander to his age. Laureano exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona, studied in Paris and mingled with reformists like Rizal, Luna and López Jaena. Could it be that his camera, too, became an instrument of the Propaganda Movement? The evidence tempts us to think so. Villanueva doesn’t overstate, but he makes us wonder. And that’s the gift — history here feels alive, not the flat recitation of heroes in textbooks, but networks of friends who believed the Filipino story was worth telling.

But Bugasong to Barcelona isn’t just biography. It’s also a mirror for us today. Laureano was a migrant artist, bridging Iloilo and Europe, much like our nurses, seafarers and creatives scattered worldwide. His photographs proved Filipinos could master new technology and use it to humanize our own people. That’s why his story resonates — because even now, we straddle worlds, carrying Bugasong in our hearts while making names in Barcelona, Dubai, Toronto or Madrid.

The book’s photos — more than 60 — say as much as the text. A mestiza gazes proudly. Villagers carry a coffin. Children laugh by a riverbank. They are not props. They are our ancestors, frozen in sepia, insisting that their lives were full, difficult and dignified. Teachers will see in them a classroom treasure trove. Students will see a past that feels alive, relatable and almost touchable.

Villanueva himself deserves mention. An Ilonggo migrant in Canada, he could have stayed comfortably in media work. His summers were pilgrimages to dusty archives, chasing Laureano’s trail. He endured 15 years of rejection and resolve, a labor that was easy to miss but impossible to replace. It’s love disguised as scholarship, reminding us that heritage survives only because someone refuses to give up on it.

The book also forces a question: Why are so many old Filipino photos sitting in European archives instead of Manila? It unsettles us, and it should. But it also challenges us to act — to digitize, preserve and support research before memory slips away. In a time when fake photos and AI images go viral daily, truth-telling through archives becomes a national responsibility.

Laureano’s collotypes, painstakingly made, stand in sharp contrast to today’s instant image culture. His craft was slow, deliberate and enduring. He reminds us that images matter not because there are many, but because they are true. Villanueva’s own labor — years of travel, rejection and rediscovery — is proof that some things cannot be automated. Preserving memory takes human stubbornness — and yes, love.

For Antiqueños, the book is a homecoming. For Ilonggos, it celebrates a tradition of world-class talent. For Filipinos, it insists that dignity and artistry are not borrowed — they are our birthright. And for teachers, it is a gift — an accessible, photo-filled way to bring history alive in classrooms. That’s why I plan to donate my copy to our ISUFST library so that more students and teachers can encounter Laureano’s story firsthand and see how one man with a camera captured not just images but the soul of a people.

Villanueva succeeds because he writes with both rigor and heart. The book is serious but never dull, scholarly but never dry. Most of all, it gives us perspective. Filipino artistry did not start yesterday. It began with people like Félix Laureano, who dared to see and dared to make the world see us. His photographs are no longer just history. They are mirrors waiting for us to recognize ourselves.

For those who wish to purchase Bugasong to Barcelona: Life and Works of Felix Laureano, you may reach out to Emmanuel Lerona on Facebook Messenger or order here: https://tinyurl.com/mt9wnhvp.