diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

But to solve once and for all any doubts whether Rizal read or at leastknew the contents of the text we have just quoted, let us keep in mind thateven if he could not have had direct access to the text, he did read or at leastknow it through El Eco Filipino, a newspaper he read, which immediatelysummarized in its pages this pearl of religious sensationalism, to use it as adart aimed at the religious orders in the Philippines, reproducing the entiretext in his own pages and adding comments easily understood by the reader.The` editors of El Eco Filipino found precisely what they desperatelyneeded to prove the truth of their charges against the friars in the Philippines.This allowed them to demolish the arguments of those who, though admittingcorruption to a certain degree in certain sectors of the religious orders,insisted that the majority maintained an appreciable level of moral integrity,as maintained by, among others, Joaquin de Coria (no longer a Franciscan bythis time) and the Augustinian Fray Casimiro Herrero. It was preciselyagainst the latter that the editors of this newspaper wrote. Affirming that fromthen on they could not support the opinion that abuses in the Philippines weretrue only in isolated instances, they concluded with some sort of a diagnosisof what was occurring in the Islands:There has not been in recent years, nor is there in those who exercise power [i.e.,the religious orders] any moral strength to hold back the progress of evil which,starting from the parts, has now taken hold of the whole. And it is also admittedthat, besides being chronic, the religious authorities themselves are infected bythe leprosy to an extreme degree, since they represent the majority.°Substitute for "leprosy" the word "cancer" used by Rizal in thededication of his novel and we have touched the heart of Noli me tangere. Theinformation provided by Francisco Arriaga to the most radical andbelligerent liberals who were fighting for reforms in Philippine society is soextreme and full that the Noli's author can rightfully say that what hepublished was only a portion of the abundant information on his country'scondition at his disposal. It would have been logical to ask if the newspublished by Arriaga merited full credence. Neither Rizal nor the editors ofEl Eco Filipino did that. A politician seldom undertakes this kind ofinvestigation.5. El Eco Filipino, Madrid, 1871-1872Since the events connected with the 1868 Spanish Revolution, El EcoFilipino had been without doubt one of the more important publications in theformation of a specific opinion regarding the Philippine problematique and79