diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

case of real historical existence, Miguel Lucio y Bustamante was not presentwhen the Franciscan procure on Isla del Romero was assaulted on 15 January1891, an episode described by Rizal in chapter 36 of El Filibusterismo. Hecould therefore not be found among those wounded by the tulisans. On theother hand, Fray Gregorio Azagra and Eusebio Gomez Platen) were there.These two were less the object of the admiration of Rizal, and with goodreason.72V. RIZAL'S QUESTIONABLE OBJECTIVITYDid Rizal in his writings about the Franciscans judge them objectively,especially in his two novels, the Noli and the Fili? He himself seems to havethought so, considering the various statements we find in his correspondenceoccasioned by criticisms of his first novel from various sectors. For example,in his letter to Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo he does not hesitate to say "Mybook will have (and has) its defects.from the artistic or aesthetic viewpoint. . . but what I cannot doubt is the impartiality of its narrations?'" But it wasnot only Rizal who said that; the Jesuit Fr. Faura, too, who must have assuredits author that in the Noli "I have written the truth, the bitter truth," Rizalhimself reports. "You have not written a novel. You have described the sadcondition of our time."74The reality, however, seems completely different. Ferdinand Blumentrittshows in the prologue to Rizal's edition of Morga's Sucesos de las islasFilipinas that the Filipino writer erred in viewing history from a distortedperspective when he asserted that the people of the 17th century should havethe same values as those of the 19th. There is something else. At the end ofRizal's notes to this edition, the reader gets the impression that the Philippinenational hero has fallen in the same trap as the Spaniards whom he wanted todiscredit. He considered reasonable, ethical, and correct only what in someway or another favored the Filipinos, but reproachable and barbaric what theSpaniards did. One form of racism substituted for another!As regards the Noli me tangere, W. E. Retana, the greatest Spanishapologist for Rizal and perhaps his best biographer until now, does nothesitate to say:Rizal's narratives are accurate in as much as they are based on rigorously certainfacts. His characters area natural copy. And yet . .. it would be very easy to writethe Anti Noli me tangere, and with facts of indisputable authenticity turn Rizal'snovel inside out149