diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

denouncing the religious orders and severely attacking de la Torre whom itaccused in the issue for 22 September 1870 of having "agreed to the order ofbanning the newspapers from concerning themselves even indirectly with thepolicies for the Philippines, and especially the policies of Spain . . . ."But let us return to the Coria-Burgos controversy. Antonio Ma. Regidor,the Filipino author who has given to this epistolary debate the greatestimportance, stated reservedly that when Burgos joined the debate, "FrayCoria immediately stopped his letter writing," an assertion that does riot seemto have any foundation. In the first place, Joaquin de Coria more than sixmonths before had been deposed from his post by his superiors, preciselybecause of his contributions to the newspaper which we are discussing. And,second, on 18 and 29 September, and 10 October 1869, that is, on the nextday after Coria's last letter appeared, he had received a blunt reply in the formof three anonymous letters in which the writer, after a long historicaldisquisition of the conflict between the secular and the regular clergy in thePhilippines, denounced certain actual activities of the Franciscans, amongwhom he mentioned Gregorio Aguirre by name, and included a letter fromthe politico-military commander of Morong to the Governor of thePhilippines and the Archbishop of Manila about the scandal created by theparish priest of that town.In the third part, better, third letter, the writer copied a letter from thebishop of Cebu, Jaime Gil de Ordufla, dated 13 June 1844, which bewailedthe moral decadence of the friars, but affirming he could fill with individualnames the blank space of the letter from the commander of Morong.Who wrote these three important letters which, for the first time, placethe Franciscans in the eye of the hurricane of the newspaper controversy onthe clergy of the Philippines? Without any doubt, he was a Franciscan and,almost certainly, a friend of Francisco Arriaga. Without entering into thedetails of our second affirmation, it is enough to quote the followingregarding the first:Give up, then, [you, Coria] your so-called rights based on that privilege, inconformity also with what our holy founder, Saint Francis, was saying: "Hisprivilege and that of his brothers was to possess nothing."103Another Madrid paper that joined in the polemic raised by Barrantes'articles on the clergy in the Philippines was the republican La Reforma. Itseditor was a known and influential political figure of the age, grand master ofthe Orient of Spain, and friend of the members of the Filipino colony inMadrid, among whom was Jose Rizal. I refer to Miguel Morayta. It is his161