18 DECEMBER

Patriot Graciano Lopez Jaena

1856 - Future Filipino orator,  patriot, and propagandist Graciano  Lopez y Jaena is born to poor but religious parents in Jaro, Iloilo  during the Spanish colonial times;  realizing the miserable socio-economic  conditions of the Filipinos under the  Spaniards, Lopez Jaena will begin his  crusade that exhorts the natives to  embrace freedom and equality; he will  be most noted for his circulation of  his satire of abusive Spanish friars  as the character "Fray Butod" (a thin  friar turned pot-bellied as he was  fattened by the toils of parishioners)  in the bid to expose the greed,  cruelty, laziness, and even lust of  the colonial friars; Lopez-Jaena will later travel to Spain where he will declare his desire for all territories under Spain to be given equal treatment, attention and consideration under the law.

Dr. Hilario D.G. Lara

1987 - Filipino national scientist and  distinguished authority on public health Hilario D.G. Lara dies at the  ripe old age of 93; after earning his  doctor of medicine at the University  of the Philippines, Lara obtained his  masters and doctorate in Public Health  from the John Hopkins University  during the American colonial times; he  was instrumental in establishing the  National Research Council of the  Philippines and is recognized for  devoting over 50 years in the pursuit,  application, and dissemination of  epidemiological, health conservation  and environmental sanitation knowledge  that subsequently helped control  cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever,  measles and other diseases in the  Southeast Asian nation.


Photo credits:

http://www.gigsilonggo.com/graciano-lopez-jaena-ilonggo-national-hero-and-press-freedom-fighter.html

http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?p=49359860