diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

Spain. In November, Coria, Arriaga, and Pardo presented themselves for thepublic competitive examinations for the chair of Tagalog created at theCentral University of Madrid to prepare government functionaries for thePhilippines. The board of judges, composed of Nicolas Salmeron, Fernandode Castro, Jose Alvarez, and Manuel Azcarraga, recommended FranciscoArriaga as the first choice. But Segismundo Moret, the Overseas Minister,decided to give the chair to Coria and not to Arriaga. Paradoxically, Arriaga'sbackground and his present liberal inclinations served him nothing before agovernment of the same persuasion. It had preferred being realistic to beingutopian, compromise to real progress. It was one more bud showing theworsening deterioration of the revolution of September 1868.11°Sebastian Moraleda de Almonacid did not spare himself in tact andconsideration before Coria's new situation, counselling patience to thosewho sought the former Commissar's expulsion from the province and theorder. But such a decision was never taken. Meanwhile, Fray Pascual Adeva,in charge of the economic concerns in Spain stayed with him.We do not know if Coria finally took possession of the chair of Tagalog.We only know that he received the official appointment on 28 December1870, that on 1 February 1872 the Overseas Minister asked the Ministir ofPublic Works to publish in the Gaceta de Madrid the notice of the opening ofthe course, and that on 16 March that year Joaquin de Coria accepted hisanticipated salary in the payroll.We suppose that the time that elapsed between his destitution from theoffice of Commissar on 4 June 1870 to the date of his election to theprofessorial chair of Tagalog he employed to edit his Nueva grameitica tagalateorico-prdctica (Madrid: Imprenta de J. Antonio Garcia, 1872)."1He must have fallen sick soon afterwards, for by July of the followingyear, 1873, he was already dead. Although Eusebio Gomez Platerd believeshe died outside of the Order, legally he was still a Franciscan till the end of hislife.'" In fact, the Franciscan community at the College of Consuegra(Toledo) prayed for the repose of his soul, using the prescribed prayers in therule for members of the province."3 His brothers in the cloth seem veryquickly to have forgotten his name, perhaps too quickly. The Filipinoilustrados, on the other hand, only slowly, perhaps very slowly, forgot him.7. The Franciscans—Corrupt Order?By going through Rizal's works, the reader can easily reach theconclusion that the Franciscans in the Philippines during the second half ofthe nineteenth century must have been one of the most degenerate and166