Comunicado desde España. Los indios de Filipinas

The ilustrado Graciano López Jaena (1856-1896) was a Filipino journalist and reformist who was also the editor of the Filipino newspaper published in Spain La Solidaridad, which included articles about the cultural, economic, and social conditions of the Philippines in order to increase Spanish awareness of its colony. Some well-known Filipinos who wrote for this newspaper and who were the founders of the affiliated organization were José Rizal and Antonio Luna. 

In this article, published by the Spanish newspaper El Liberal, Lopez Jaena criticizes non-truthful reports on the Philippines and especially those written by Pablo Feced "Quioquiap", among which the racist article "Ellos y nosotros", published in the same newspaper three days earlier. 

A comprehensive sentence from López Jaena’s article is the following: “To vindicate before the public the good name of the Philippines from the insults and unjust aggressions inflicted by the pen of Quioquiap, and so that neither here nor there it will be believed that we are such as he describes in his articles, are our object in writing these lines”. López Jaena states that it is the job of Filipinos to describe themselves, their country, and their culture and that descriptions by others about the Philippines cannot be taken as true.

Quioquiap. 1887. "Ellos y nosotros", El Liberal, vol. IX, num. 2.808, February 13: 2. 

Rodao, Florentino. 2018. “‘The salvational currents of emigration’: Racial theories and social disputes in the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 49, num. 3, October 15: 426-444. 

Sánchez Gómez, Luís Ángel. 1998. “'Ellos y nosotros' y 'Los Indios de Filipinas', artículos de Pablo Feced y Graciano López Jaena (1887)”, Revista española del Pacífico VII, num. 8. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.