Graciano’s Dirty Fingers book launch

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Graciano López Jaena’s story is getting an archival shake-up, and organizers want the public in the room as the pages – and the evidence – get turned.

The Friends of UP Visayas High School Foundation Inc. and the National Museum of the Philippines – Iloilo are inviting the public to the launch of “Graciano’s Dirty Fingers,” a book by Emmanuel Lerona, on Dec. 18, 2025, from 3–5 p.m. at the National Museum Western Visayas, the former Iloilo Prison, a 1911 heritage structure recognized by the National Museum as an Important Cultural Property.

Organizers describe the book as an updated archival-historiographical biography of López Jaena, grounded in newly recovered primary sources from the Philippines and Spain, including letters, periodicals, official records, and unpublished documents.

Published by the Friends of UP Visayas High School Foundation, the book reexamines López Jaena’s political thought, journalistic work, networks in Spain, and role in the Propaganda Movement, placing him within broader Spanish republican and anti-colonial currents of the late 19th century.

López Jaena – born Dec. 18, 1856 – was a journalist and orator from Jaro, Iloilo, and a founder and first editor of La Solidaridad, a key reformist publication associated with the Propaganda Movement.

The launch is being framed not only as a scholarly milestone, but also as a public invitation to rethink how Filipinos engage with archives, memory, and historical interpretation, according to the event announcement.

The book launch is supported by the Dr. Graciano Lopez Jaena Foundation Inc., the University of the Philippines Visayas Center for West Visayan Studies, the UPV Office of Alumni Relations, Kasingkasing Press, West Visayas State University Maaram, WVSU DevCom Society, WVSU Athenaeum Keepers, WYWV West TV, and the University of San Agustin Archives and Museum.

To deepen the conversation, the program includes a panel discussion titled “Counter-Archive as Historiography,” featuring Dr. Genevieve Asenjo, Dr. Ma. Luisa Mabunay, Prof. Stephen B. Alayon, Mia Fe Lopez-Cruz, and Berks Joseph Barrios Tan.

Organizers said the panel will examine how historical research can operate as a counter-archive by challenging dominant narratives, surfacing marginalized or silenced voices, and expanding evidence-based storytelling in the age of digital tools, AI-assisted research, and open-access knowledge infrastructures.

The event is free, with registration available online: https://bit.ly/GracianoFingers.

A limited number of copies will be sold at the launch for a launch price of PHP 600.00, while a limited-time pre-order offer (https://bit.ly/GracianoBook) lists the book at PHP 400.00.

The author, Emmanuel A. Lerona, is a writer, researcher, filmmaker, and book designer whose work blends archival digging, community storytelling, and visual narrative, including documentaries and cultural projects that foreground Panay indigenous lifeways and place-based memory.

The book also boasts of an impressive panel of editors.

Ma. Luisa “Meloy” E. Mabunay is a retired UP Visayas professor and historian whose work spans local history, Japanese migration, gender studies, and coastal resource management, and who helped steer the project’s reexamination of López Jaena through newly accessed archival materials.

Marilynn “Meyen” Quigley is a poet and writer based in Victoria, Canada, whose life and work span the Philippines, Sudan, the U.S., Pakistan, and Turkey, and who has published essays on migration and cross-cultural experience while staying active in community work with Filipino immigrants.

Francisco “Frank” G. Villanueva is an educator, writer, and communication professional whose career spans teaching, advertising, and cultural advocacy, and who authored “Bugasong to Barcelona: Life and Works of Felix Laureano (2025).”