diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

Anyway, the close collaboration between the Labra-Manuel Regidortandem was maintained until the 90s. The most important project the twoundertook, however, was the publication of El Correo de Espana, its issuescoming out in 1870. We shall return to this later.Did Rizal know, and, more importantly, use this work of Rafael Maria deLabra when planning and writing the No/17 We think so. It is very probablethat the publication the latter mentions under the title Estudios coloniales wasnone other than what we have just mentioned—see Noli, 17—although thename was changed.All in all, as I have previously mentioned, given the close relationshipbetween Rizal and Labra, it is hard to see that the former would not know thelatter's writings. Besides, the identity of ideas expressed by the Cubanpolitician and the author of Noli seems impossible to deny. Not to lengthenexcessively these observations, it is enough to compare the last paragraph ofLa Questi6n colonial with the following words Ibarra uttered in frustrationand despair when he found himself vilely implicated by Fray Salvi as havingplotted the alleged mutiny of San Diego:Now misfortune has snatched away the blindfold from my eyes. Now I see thehorrible cancer that is gnawing away at our society . . . . And since that is howthey want it, I shall became an agitator, but a true agitator ....God does not exist.There is no hope. There is neither human kindness nor any other law than mightwhich is right!"2. [Joaquin de Coria, or Gil y Montes de Santo Domingo, 0. F. M.],Memorla apologetka sabre la utIlklad y servidos prestados a Espanapor los religiosos misioneros de Filipinas, redactada por un religiosomisionero franciscano. Madrid: Imprenta de R. Labajos, 1869Elsewhere" we explain the reasons for attributing this work to the FranciscanFray Joaguin de Coria even if it was not published under his name. Butwho was this Franciscan friar?Fray Joaquin was born in Coria, ClIceres on 12 December 1813, came tothe Philippines in 1831, and served in various parochial and administrativeoffices in the Franciscan Province of Saint Gregory the Great In 1864, hewas sent to Madrid as Procurator for the Order,thus becoming a witness of theevents of the 1868 revolution. When the Regidor brothers and Labra beganpublicising the Philippine problem, including heavy attacks on the religiousorders in the Philippines, Joaquin de Coria, perhaps urged on by theprocurators of the other Orders, notably the Augustinian Fray Casimir,"Herrero, sallied forth to the arena and engaged in a bitter polemic, dragging70