he Noli is Published. “Noli Me Tangere... means do not touch me.

’ The book contains things of

which no one among ourselves has spoken up to the present; they are so delicate that can not
be touched by anybody.. I have endeavored to answer the calumnies which for centuries had
been heaped on us and our country: I have describe the social condition, the life, our beliefs,
our hopes, our desire, our grievances, our griefs.., the facts I narrate are all true and they
actually happened; I can prove them.”

Rizal was desperately despondent because he had a slim hope of having Noli published for he
was penniless. Winter had set in and his sickness would have been worse were it not for the
timely arrival in December of his wealthy friend, Dr. Maximo Viola. Upon the insistence of this
magnanimous man for San Miguel, Bulacan, who loaned P300 to Rizal, Noli was finally printed
in March, 1887. The author gave away complimentary copies to Viola, Blumentritt,Resurreccion
Hidalgo, Lopez Jaena, Juna Luna, Mercelo de Pilar and Regidor. Blumentritt said: “This is the
first impartial and daring book on the life of the Tagalogs.. The government and Spanish friars
will probably fight the books, that is, they will attack it, but I confide in GOD and the truth in the
people who have seen our sufferings at close range.” Rizal was right his novel raised a tempest
and he made more enemies in his Country.

Rizal received formal expression of high praise for his novel and these were sent by Antonio
Regidor and Prof. Ferdinand Blumentritt. Regidor, a Filipino exile of 1872 in London, said that”
The book was superior: and that ;if Don Quijote has made is author immortal because he
exposed to the world the sufferings of Spain, your Noli Me Tangere will bring you to equal
glory.” Blumentritt, after reading Rizal’s Noli, wrote and congratulated its author, saying..
“Young work as we Germans say has been written with blood of the heart. Your work has
exceeded my hopes and considered myself happy to have been honored with your friendship.
Not only I, but also your country, may feel for having in you a patriotic and loyal son. If you
continue so, you will be to your people one of those great men who will exercise a
determinative influence over the progress of their spiritual life.”

Rizal’s Friend and admirers praised with pride the Noli and its author. On the other hand, his
enemies were bitter in attacking and condemning the same. Probably no other work or writing
of another Filipino author has aroused as much acrimonious debate not only among the
Filipinos but also among the reactionary foreigners as the Noli of Rizal. In the Philippines this
novel wa attacked and condemned by a Faculty Committee in 1887. The committee said that it
found the book” Heretical, impious, and scandalous to the religious order, and unpatriotic and
subversive to public order, libelous to the Government of Spain and its Political Policies in these
Islands, “while the commission recommended that the importation, reproduction, and
circulation of this pernicious book in the Islands be absolutely Probihited

The attacks o Rizal’s first novel were not only confined in the Philippines but were also stage in
the Spanish capital Madrid. Senator Fernando Vida, Deputy and Ex- Gerneral Luis M. de Pnado,
and Pramides mate Sagasta were among those who unjustly lambasted and criticized Rizal and
his Noli in the two chambers of the Spanish Cortes in 1888 and 1899. It is interesting and
comforting to learn, however, that about thriteen years lated, U.S. Congressman Henry Allen
Cooper or Wisconsin delivered on June 19,1902 an eulogy of Rizal and he even recited the
Filipino martyr’s Ultimo Pensamiento (Last thoughts) on the floor of the United States House of
Representatives in order to prove to his colleagues the capacity of the Filipinos for self-
Government. The U.S. congressman said in part: “It has been said that, if American institutions
had done nothing else that furnish to the world the character of George Washington, that alone
would entitle them to the respect of mankind, so, I say categorically to all those who denounce
the Filipinos indiscriminately as barbarians and savages, without possibility of a civilized future,
that this despised raced proved itself entitled to their self respect and to the respect of
mankind when if furnished to the whole world the character of Jose Rizal.” Such Statements
Reverberated in the halls of U.S. Congress. The results of this speech and the appeal of
Representative Cooper in effect, were the resounding approval of what is popularly known as
the Philippine bill of 1902, which granted the Filipinos a large measure of participation in
running the social, economic and political affairs of their government.