By Mariela Angella Oladive
A rare surviving copy of El Látigo Nacional, a newspaper founded by Ilonggo journalist and Filipino hero Graciano López Jaena in 1893, was officially unveiled at the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) on Wednesday, May 7.
The unveiling took place during a symposium titled “El Látigo Nacional and the Afterlife of Print: Lopez Jaena, Archival Return, and Transpacific Conversations” held at the UPV Little Theatre.
The event was organized by the UPV Center for West Visayan Studies (CWVS) in collaboration with the University of Virginia.
It also featured the signing of a deed of donation between UPV Chancellor Dr. Clement Camposano, donor-scholar Robert Sanchis Álvarez, and Dr. Ricardo Padrón of the University of Virginia, witnessed by CWVS Director, Asst. Prof. Frances Anthea Redison.
Originally printed in Spanish during López Jaena’s later years in Barcelona, El Látigo Nacional had not been seen or circulated for over a century.
Sanchis Álvarez discovered the newspaper two years ago during archival research in Barcelona, where he found it folded among old Republican journals at a flea market.
“This is not just an object—it is a fragment of a much larger story,” Sanchis Álvarez said, emphasizing the collaborative effort behind its recovery and preservation.
He noted the paper’s fragile condition when found—folded in four and preserved for more than a hundred years.
“Rather than treating the newspaper as a collector’s find, it was, from the beginning, a way of opening a conversation—not just about the paper, but about the legacies of these materials and representations,” he added.
“When we speak about El Látigo Nacional and its afterlife, we’re not just referring to its content, but to a material history marked by absence and reappearance, and to the ways in which this still represents some visibility—or the lack of it.”
The recovered issue, consisting of four printed pages, has undergone conservation and digitization.
It will be temporarily housed at the CWVS before its transfer to the UPV Office of Initiatives in Culture and the Arts – Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage (OICA-MACH).
CWVS and UPV officials hailed the turnover as a milestone in historical and cultural recovery.
CWVS Director Asst. Prof. Redison called it a timely gift coinciding with the center’s 50th anniversary and expressed gratitude to all stakeholders involved.
Mia Fe Lopez-Cruz, sixth-generation descendant of López Jaena and representative of the Dr. Graciano Lopez Jaena Foundation Inc., called the turnover “a rekindling of López Jaena’s spirit and ideals.”
“This turnover reminds us that archives are not just relics of the past; they are living dialogues that shape our present and future understanding of nationhood,” she said.
Dr. Padrón and Dr. Francis Navarro of Ateneo de Manila University also shared insights on the paper’s historical significance, linking it to transpacific studies, colonial history, and Filipino identity.
