diced b Jos e S. Arc a, - non

and the question therefore was whether their conviction was just or not.(2) The most likely hypothesis was that those charged with complicity werepersons they did not trust because they had joined in the manifestation whende la Torre took possession of the governorship of the Philippines, hadcollected funds to raise a monument to Simon de Anda y Salazar, plaCedwreaths on his tomb (especially the secular clergy and the youth of thePhilippines), and, finally, were readers of El EcoEl Eco Filipino carried in its masthead its editorial address, but it hadserious circulation difficulties in the Philippines. It was sent from Madrid toindividuals who took care to spread it from hand to hand, always careful lestthey be caught reading its pages or that a copy be found during a randomsearch in the houses. This is shown by the following paragraph from V. M.Garchitorena's letter dated 6 August 1871 to Fr. Vicente Garcia:I enclose for you the first issue of El Eco Filipino and if I don't send copies untilthe fourth, it is because the few we have received are with the reader only longenough for him to read it. Of the package received till now, 16,000 copies havebeen burned secretly. There are now 450 subscriptions here. We now await alsothe protection for those in the provinces. Here [in Manila] the practice is to burnor destroy the correspondence regarding this periodical?•But if this was happening to the first issues, one can imagine what wouldbe done to the issues after the Cavite incidents. As a matter of fact, FedericoLerena writes to his brother-in-law, Jose Maria Basa: "I shall send you only acopy [of Number 16] that you may read it and do what you want with it.""And we know that the civil and religious authorities had forbidden this paperand El Correo de Espafia." •Did Rizal know or use El Eco Filipino to give fonn and• content to theNoli? The answer seems obvious: yes. Besides, after reading this newspaperand rereading the pages of Rizal's novel, one gets the impression that the lineof thought which unifies and gives life to the work, with all the nuances,naturally, is the ideology, the preoccupations, the pretensions and even thefacts that motivated the editors of the newspaper. The coincidences are quitenumerous. The editorial aim was "to draw a little and for a-few moments thethick veil that covers the truth" and "uproot from the eyes the blind thatblocks [the Filipino people] from seeing . . and lighten the misery, thepain . . ." For Jose Rizal, the Noli aimed "to lift a corner of the veil whichshrouds the disease, sacrificing everything to the truth, even self-love—for,as your son, your defects and weaknesses are also mine." (Dedication) AndIbarra concludes after the fictitious San Diego uprising: "Now I see the82