The Nautical School naturally stood outside the sphere of ecclesiastical control. Established in 1839 in Calle Cabildo (walled city), its purpose was to instruct youths in the science of navigation and prepare them for the merchant service within the waters of the Archipelago and the adjacent seas. During the earthquake of 1863 the school building was destroyed. It was then re-established in Calle San Juan de Letran, subsequently located in Calle del Palacio, and was finally (in 1898) removed from the walled city to the business quarter of Binondo. Special attention was given to the teaching of mathematics, and considerable sums of money were allocated, from time to time, for the equipment of this technical centre of learning.

One of the most interesting and amusing types of the native was the average college student from the provinces. After a course of two, three, up to eight years, he learnt to imitate European dress and ape Western manners; to fantastically dress his hair; to wear patent-leather shoes, jewellery, and a latest-fashioned felt hat adjusted carefully towards one side of his head. He went to the theatre, drove a "tilbury," and attended native reunions, to deploy his abilities before the beau sexe of his class. During his residence in the capital, he was supposed to learn, amongst other subjects, Latin, Divinity, Philosophy, and sometimes Theology, preparatory, in many cases, to succeeding his father in a sugar-cane and rice plantation. The average student had barely an outline idea of either physical or political geography, whilst his notions of Spanish or universal history were very chaotic. I really think the Manila newspapers—poor as they were—contributed very largely to the education of the people in this Colony.

Still, there are cases of an ardent genius shining as an exception to his race. Amongst the few, there were two brothers named Luna—the one was a notably skilful performer on the guitar and violin, who, however, died at an early age. The other, Juan Luna, developed a natural ability for painting. A work of his own conception—the "Spoliarium," executed by him in Rome in 1884—gained the second prize at the Madrid Academy Exhibition of Oil Paintings. The Municipality of Barcelona purchased this chef d'oeuvre for the City Hall. Other famous productions of his are "The Battle of Lepanto," "The Death of Cleopatra," and "The Blood Compact" (q.v). This last masterpiece was acquired by the Municipality of Manila for the City Hall, but was removed when the Tagalog Rebellion broke out, for reasons which will be understood after reading Chapter xxii. This artist, the son of poor parents, was a second mate on board a sailing ship, when his gifts were recognized, and means were furnished him with which to study in Rome. His talent was quite exceptional, for these Islanders are not an artistic people. Having little admiration for the picturesque and the beautiful in Nature, they cannot depict them: in this respect they form a decided contrast to the Japanese. Paete (La Laguna) is the only place I know of in the provinces where there are sculptors by profession. The Manila Academy was open to all comers of all nationalities, and, as an ex-student under its Professors Don Lorenzo Rocha and Don Agustin Saez, I can attest to their enthusiasm for the progress of their pupils.

In the General Post and Telegraph Office in Manila I was shown an excellent specimen of wood-carving—a bust portrait of Mr. Morse (the celebrated inventor of the Morse system of telegraphy)—the work of a native sculptor. Another promising native, Vicente Francisco, exhibited some good sculpture work in the Philippine Exhibition, held in Madrid in 1887: the jury recommended him for a State pension, to study in Madrid and Rome. The beautiful design of the present insular coinage (Philippine peso) is the work of a Filipino. The biography of the patriot martyr Dr. Jose Rizal (q.v.), the most brilliant of all Filipinos, is related in another chapter.

The native of cultivated intellect, on returning from Europe, found a very limited circle of friends of his own new training. If he returned a lawyer or a doctor, he was one too many, for the capital swarmed with them; if he had learnt a trade, his knowledge was useless outside Manila, and in his native village his technical acquirements were generally profitless. Usually the native's sojourn in Europe made him too self-opinionated to become a useful member of society. It remains to be seen how American training will affect them.

The (American) Insular Government has taken up the matter of Philippine education very earnestly, and at considerable outlay: the subject is referred to in Chapter xxx.

The intellectual and spiritual life, as we have it in Europe, does not exist in the Philippines. If ever a Filipino studied any subject, purely for the love of study, without the hope of material or social advantage being derived therefrom, he would be a rara avis.



The Disease most prevalent among the Filipinos is fever—especially in the spring: and although, in general, they may be considered a robust, enduring race, they are less capable than the European of withstanding acute disease. I should say that quite 50 per cent. of the native population are affected by cutaneous disease, said to be caused by eating fish daily, and especially shell-fish. It is locally known as Sarnas: natives say that monkey flesh cures it.

In 1882 Cholera morbus in epidemic form ravaged the native population, carrying off thousands of victims, the exact number of which has never been published. The preventive recommended by the priests on this occasion, viz., prayer to Saint Roque, proved quite ineffectual to stay the plague. A better remedy, found in the country, is an infusion of Niota tetrapetala (Tagalog, Manungal). From time to time this disease reappears. The returns given in the Official Gazette of March 2, 1904, Vol. II., No. 9, show the average monthly mortality due to Cholera, in the 20-1/3 months between March 20, 1902, and December 1, 1903, to be 5,360. Annually, many natives suffer from what is called Colerin—a mild form of Cholera, but not epidemic. In the spring, deaths always occur from acute indigestion, due to eating too plentifully of new rice. Many who have recovered from Cholera become victims to a disease known as Beri-Beri, said to be caused by the rice and fish diet. The first symptom of Wet Beri-Beri is a swelling of the legs, like dropsy; that of Dry Beri-Beri is a wasting away of the limbs. Smallpox makes great ravages, and Measles is a common complaint. Lung and Bronchial affections are very rare. The most fearful disease in the Colony is Leprosy. [87] To my knowledge it is prevalent in the Province of Bulacan (Luzon Is.), and in the islands of Cebu and Negros. There is an asylum for lepers near Manila and at Mabolo, just outside the City of Cebu (vide Lepers), but no practical measures were ever adopted by the Spaniards to eradicate this disease. The Spanish authorities were always too indifferent about the propagation of leprosy to establish a home on one island for all male lepers and another home, on another island, for female lepers—the only effectual way to extirpate this awful malady. In Baliuag (Bulacan), leper families, personally known to me, were allowed to mix with the general public. In Cebu and Negros Islands they were permitted to roam about on the highroads and beg.

The Insular Government has taken up the question of the Lepers, and in 1904 a tract of land was purchased in the Island of Culion (Calamianes group) to provide for their hygienic isolation. According to the Official Gazette of March 2, 1904, Vol. II., No. 9, the total number of lepers, of whom the Insular Government had obtained cognizance, up to December 31, 1903, was 3,343. Besides these there would naturally be an unknown number who had escaped recognition.

There is apparently little Insanity in the Islands. From the Report of the Commissioner of Public Health for February, 1904, it would appear that there were only about 1,415 insane persons in a population of over seven-and-a-half millions.

Since the American advent (1898) the Death-rate is believed to have notably decreased. The Report of the Commissioner of Public Health for 1904 states the death-rate per thousand in Manila to have been as follows, viz.:—Natives 53.72; Europeans other than Spaniards 16.11; Spaniards 15.42; and Americans 9.34. The Commissioner remarks that "over 50 per cent. of the children born in the city of Manila never live to see the first anniversary of their birthday." The Board of Health is very active in the sanitation of Manila. Inspectors make frequent domiciliary visits. The extermination of rats in the month of December, 1903, amounted to 24,638. House-refuse bins are put into the streets at night, and an inspector goes round with a lamp about midnight to examine them. Dead animals, market-rubbish, house-refuse, rotten hemp, sweepings, etc., are all cremated at Palomar, Santa Cruz, and Paco, and in July, 1904, this enterprising department started the extermination of mosquitoes! In the suburbs of Manila there are now twelve cemeteries and one crematorium.



CHAPTER XII

The Religious Orders

History attests that at least during the first two centuries of Spanish rule, the subjugation of the natives and their acquiescence in the new order of things were obtained more by the subtle influence of the missionaries than by the sword. As the soldiers of Castile carried war into the interior and forced its inhabitants to recognize their King, so the friars were drafted off from the mother country to mitigate the memory of bloodshed and to mould Spain's new subjects to social equanimity. In many cases, in fact, the whole task of gaining their submission to the Spanish Crown and obedience to the dictates of Western civilization was confided solely to the pacific medium of persuasion. The difficult mission of holding in check the natural passions and instincts of a race which knew no law but individual will, was left to the successors of Urdaneta. Indeed, it was but the general policy of Philip II. to aggrandize his vast realm under the pretence of rescuing benighted souls. The efficacy of conversion was never doubted for a moment, however suddenly it might come to pass, and the Spanish cavalier conscientiously felt that he had a high mission to fulfil under the Banner of the Cross. In every natural event which coincided with their interests, in the prosecution of their mission, the wary priests descried a providential miracle.

In their opinion the non-Catholic had no rights in this world—no prospect of gaining the next. If the Pope claimed the whole world (such as was known of it) to be in his gift—how much more so heathen lands! The obligation to convert was imposed by the Pope, and was an inseparable condition of the conceded right of conquest. It was therefore constantly paramount in the conqueror's mind. [88] The Pope could depose and give away the realm of any sovereign prince "si vel paulum deflexerit." The Monarch held his sceptre under the sordid condition of vassalage; hence Philip II., for the security of his Crown, could not have disobeyed the will of the Pontiff, whatever his personal inclinations might have been regarding the spread of Christianity. [89] If he desired it, he served his ends with advantage to himself—if he were indifferent to it, he secured by its prosecution a formidable ally in Rome. America had already drained the Peninsula of her able-bodied men to such an extent that a military occupation of these Islands would have overtaxed the resources of the mother country. The co-operation of the friars was, therefore, an almost indispensable expedient in the early days, and their power in secular concerns was recognized to the last by the Spanish-Philippine authorities, who continued to solicit the aid of the parish priests in order to secure obedience to decrees affecting their parishioners.

Up to the Rebellion of 1896 the placid word of the ecclesiastic, the superstitious veneration which he inspired in the ignorant native, had a greater law-binding effect than the commands of the civil functionary. The gownsman used those weapons appropriate to his office which best touched the sensibilities and won the adhesion of a rude audience. The priest appealed to the soul, to the unknown, to the awful and the mysterious. Go where he would, the convert's imagination was so pervaded with the mystic tuition that he came to regard his tutor as a being above common humanity. The feeling of dread reverence which he instilled into the hearts of the most callous secured to him even immunity from the violence of brigands, who carefully avoided the man of God. In the State official the native saw nothing but a man who strove to bend the will of the conquered race to suit his own. A Royal Decree or the sound of the cornet would not have been half so effective as the elevation of the Holy Cross before the fanatical majority, who became an easy prey to fantastic promises of eternal bliss, or the threats of everlasting perdition. Nor is this assertion by any means chimerical, for it has been proved on several occasions, notably in the raising of troops to attempt the expulsion of the British in 1763, and in the campaign against the Sultan of Sulu in 1876. But through the Cavite Conspiracy of 1872 (vide p. 106) the friars undoubtedly hastened their own downfall. Many natives, driven to emigrate, cherished a bitter hatred in exile, whilst others were emerging yearly by hundreds from their mental obscurity. Already the intellectual struggle for freedom from mystic enthralment had commenced without injury to faith in things really divine.

Each decade brought some reform in the relations between the parish priest and the people. Link by link the chain of priestcraft encompassing the development of the Colony was yielding to natural causes. The most enlightened natives were beginning to understand that their spiritual wants were not the only care of the friars, and that the aim of the Religious Orders was to monopolize all within their reach, and to subordinate to their common will all beyond their mystic circle. The Romish Church owes its power to the uniformity of precept and practice of the vast majority of its members, and it is precisely because this was the reverse in political Spain—where statesmen are divided into a dozen or more groups with distinct policies—that the Church was practically unassailable. In the same way, all the members of a Religious Order are so closely united that a quarrel with one of them brings the enmity and opposition of his whole community. The Progressists, therefore, who combated ecclesiastical preponderance in the Philippines, demanded the retirement of the friars to conventual reclusion or missions, and the appointment of clerigos, or secular clergymen to the vicarages and curacies. By such a change they hoped to remedy the abuses of collective power, for a misunderstanding with a secular vicar would only have provoked a single-handed encounter.

That a priest should have been practically a Government agent in his locality would not have been contested in the abstract, had he not, as a consequence, assumed the powers of the old Roman Censors, who exercised the most dreaded function of the Regium Morum. Spanish opinion, however, was very much divided as to the political safety of strictly confining the friars to their religious duties. It was doubted by some whether any State authority could ever gain the confidence or repress the inherent inclinations of the native like the friar, who led by superstitious teaching, and held the conscience by an invisible cord through the abstract medium of the confessional. Others opined that a change in the then existing system of semi-sacerdotal Government was desirable, if only to give scope to the budding intelligence of the minority, which could not be suppressed.

Emerging from the lowest ranks of society, with no training whatever but that of the seminary, it was natural to suppose that these Spanish priests would have been more capable than ambitious political men of the world of blending their ideas with those of the native, and of forming closer associations with a rural population engaged in agricultural pursuits familiar to themselves in their own youth. Before the abolition of monasteries in Spain the priests were allowed to return there after 10 years residence in the Colony; since then they have usually entered upon their new lives for the remainder of their days, so that they naturally strove to make the best of their social surroundings.

The Civil servant, as a rule, could feel no personal interest in his temporary native neighbours, his hopes being centred only in rising in the Civil Service there or elsewhere—Cuba or Porto Rico, or where the ministerial wheel of fortune placed him.

The younger priests—narrow-minded and biased—those who had just entered into provincial curacies—were frequently the greater bigots. Enthusiastic in their calling, they pursued with ardour their mission of proselytism without experience of the world. They entered the Islands with the zeal of youth, bringing with them the impression imparted to them in Spain, that they were sent to make a moral conquest of savages. In the course of years, after repeated rebuffs, and the obligation to participate in the affairs of everyday life in all its details, their rigidity of principle relaxed, and they became more tolerant towards those with whom they necessarily came in contact. They were usually taken from the peasantry and families of lowly station. As a rule they had little or no secular education, and, regarding them apart from their religious training, they might be considered a very ignorant class. Amongst them the Franciscan friars appeared to be the least—and the Austins the most—polished of all.

The Spanish parish priest was consulted by the native in all matters; he was, by force of circumstances, often compelled to become an architect,—to build the church in his adopted village—an engineer, to make or mend roads, and more frequently a doctor. His word was paramount in his parish, and in his residence he dispensed with that stern severity of conventual discipline to which he had been accustomed in the Peninsula. Hence it was really here that his mental capacity was developed, his manners improved, and that the raw sacerdotal peasant was converted into the man of thought, study, and talent—occasionally into a gentleman. In his own vicinity, when isolated from European residents, he was practically the representative of the Government and of the white race as well as of social order. His theological knowledge was brought to bear upon the most mundane subjects. His thoughts necessarily expanded as the exclusiveness of his religious vocation yielded to the realization of a social position and political importance of which he had never entertained an idea in his native country.

So large was the party opposed to the continuance of priestly influence in the Colony that a six-months' resident would not fail to hear of the many misdeeds with which the friars in general were reproached. It would be contrary to fact to pretend that the bulk of them supported their teaching by personal example. I was acquainted with a great number of the friars, and their offspring too, in spite of their vow of chastity; whilst many lived in comparative luxury, notwithstanding their vow of poverty.

There was the late parish priest of Malolos, whose son, my friend, was a prominent lawyer. Father S——, of Bugason, had a whole family living in his parish. An Archbishop who held the See in my time had a daughter frequently seen on the Paseo de Santa Lucia; and in July, 1904, two of his daughters lived in Calle Quiotan, Santa Cruz, Manila, and two others, by a different mother, in the town of O——. The late parish priest of Lipa, Father B——, whom I knew, had a son whom I saw in 1893. The late incumbent of Santa Cruz, Father M—— L——, induced his spiritual flock to petition against his being made prior of his Order in Manila so that he should not have to leave his women. The late parish priest (friar) of Baliuag (Bulacan) had three daughters and two sons. I was intimately acquainted with the latter; one was a doctor of medicine and the other a planter, and they bore the surname of Gonzalez. At Cadiz Nuevo (Negros Is.) I once danced with the daughter of a friar (parish priest of a neighbouring village), whilst he took another girl as his partner. I was closely acquainted, and resided more than once, with a very mixed-up family in the south of Negros Island. My host was the son of a secular clergyman, his wife and sister-in-law were the daughters of a friar, this sister-in-law was the mistress of a friar, my host had a son who was married to another friar's daughter, and a daughter who was the wife of a foreigner. In short, bastards of the friars are to be found everywhere in the Islands. Regarding this merely as the natural outcome of the celibate rule, I do not criticize it, but simply wish to show that the pretended sanctity of the regular clergy in the Philippines was an absurdity, and that the monks were in no degree less frail than mankind in common.

The mysterious deaths of General Solano (August 1860) and of Zamora, the Bishop-elect of Cebu (1873), occurred so opportunely for Philippine monastic ambition that little doubt existed in the public mind as to who were the real criminals. When I first arrived in Manila, a quarter of a century ago, a fearful crime was still being commented on. Father Piernavieja, formerly parish priest of San Miguel de Mayumo, had recently committed a second murder. His first victim was a native youth, his second a native woman enceinte. The public voice could not be raised very loudly then against the priests, but the scandal was so great that the criminal friar was sent to another province—Cavite—where he still celebrated the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist. Nearly two decades afterwards—in January 1897—this rascal met with a terrible death at the hands of the rebels. He was in captivity, and having been appointed "Bishop" in a rebel diocese, to save his life he accepted the mock dignity; but, unfortunately for himself, he betrayed the confidence of his captors, and collected information concerning their movements, plans, and strongholds for remittance to his Order. In expiation of his treason he was bound to a post under the tropical sun and left there to die. See how the public in Spain are gulled! In a Malaga newspaper this individual was referred to as a "venerable figure, worthy of being placed high up on an altar, before which all Spaniards should prostrate themselves and adore him. As a religieux he was a most worthy minister of the Lord; as a patriot he was a hero."

Within my recollection, too, a friar absconded from a Luzon Island parish with a large sum of parochial funds, and was never heard of again. The late parish priests of Mandaloyan and Iba did the same.

I well remember another interesting character of the monastic Orders. He had been parish priest in a Zambales province town, but intrigues with a soi-disant cousine brought him under ecclesiastical arrest at the convent of his Order in Manila. Thence he escaped, and came over to Hong-Kong, where I made his acquaintance in 1890. He told me he had started life in an honest way as a shoemaker's boy, but was taken away from his trade to be placed in the seminary. His mind seemed to be a blank on any branch of study beyond shoemaking and Church ritual. He pretended that he had come over to Hong-Kong to seek work, but in reality he was awaiting his cousine, whom he rejoined on the way to Europe, where, I heard, he became a garcon de cafe in France.

In 1893 there was another great public scandal, when the friars were openly accused of having printed the seditious proclamations whose authorship they attributed to the natives. The plan of the friars was to start the idea of an intended revolt, in order that they might be the first in the field to quell it, and thus be able to again proclaim to the Home Government the absolute necessity of their continuance in the Islands for the security of Spanish sovereignty. But the plot was discovered; the actual printer, a friar, mysteriously disappeared, and the courageous Gov.-General Despujols, Conde de Caspe, was, through monastic influence, recalled. He was very popular, and the public manifestation of regret at his departure from the Islands was practically a protest against the Religious Orders.

In June, 1888, some cases of personal effects belonging to a friar were consigned to the care of an intimate friend of mine, whose guest I was at the time. They had become soaked with sea-water before he received them, and a neighbouring priest requested him to open the packages and do what he could to save the contents. I assisted my friend in this task, and amongst the friar's personal effects we were surprised to find, intermixed with prayer-books, scapularies, missals, prints of saints, etc., about a dozen most disgustingly obscene double-picture slides for a stereoscope. What an entertainment for a guide in morals! This same friar had held a vicarage before in another province, but having become an habitual drunkard, he was removed to Manila, and there appointed a confessor. From Manila he had just been again sent to take charge of the cure of souls.

I knew a money-grabbing parish priest—a friar—who publicly announced raffles from the pulpit of the church from which he preached morality and devotion. On one occasion a 200-peso watch was put up for P500—at another time he raffled dresses for the women. Under the pretext of being a pious institution, he established a society of women, called the Association of St. Joseph (Confradia de San Jose), upon whom he imposed the very secular duties of domestic service in the convent and raffle-ticket hawking. He had the audacity to dictate to a friend of mine—a planter—the value of the gifts he was to make to him, and when the planter was at length wearied of his importunities, he conspired with a Spaniard to deprive my friend of his estate, alleging that he was not the real owner. Failing in this, he stirred up the petty-governor and headmen against him. The petty-governor was urged to litigation, and when he received an unfavourable sentence, the priest, enraged at the abortive result of his malicious intrigues, actually left his vicarage to accompany his litigious protege to the chief judge of the province in quest of a reversion of the sentence.

A priest of evil propensities brought only misery to his parish and aroused a feeling of odium against the Spanish friars in general. As incumbents they held the native in contempt. He who should be the parishioner was treated despotically as the subject whose life, liberty, property, and civil rights were in his sacerdotal lord's power. And that power was not unfrequently exercised, for if a native refused to yield to his demands, or did not contribute with sufficient liberality to a religious feast, or failed to come to Mass, or protected the virtue of his daughter, or neglected the genuflexion and kissing of hands, or was out of the priest's party in the municipal affairs of the parish, or in any other trivial way became a persona non grata at the "convent," he and his family would become the pastor's sheep marked for sacrifice. As Government agent it was within his arbitrary power to attach his signature to or withhold it from any municipal document. From time to time he could give full vent to his animosity by secretly denouncing to the civil authorities as "inconvenient in the town" all those whom he wished to get rid of. He had simply to send an official advice to the Governor of the province, who forwarded it to the Gov.-General, stating that he had reason to believe that the persons mentioned in the margin were disloyal, immoral, or whatever it might be, and recommend their removal from the neighbourhood. A native so named suddenly found at his door a patrol of the Civil Guard, who escorted him, with his elbows tied together, from prison to prison, up to the capital town and thence to Manila. Finally, without trial or sentence, he was banished to some distant island of the Archipelago. He might one day return to find his family ruined, or he might as often spend his last days in misery alone. Sometimes a native who had privately heard of his "denunciation" became a remontado, that is to say he fled to the mountains to lead a bandits life where the evils of a debased civilization could not reach him. Banishment in these circumstances was not a mere transportation to another place, but was attended with all the horrors of a cruel captivity, of which I have been an eye-witness. From the foregoing it may be readily understood how the conduct of the regular clergy was the primary cause of the Rebellion of 1896; it was not the monks' immorality which disturbed the mind of the native, but their Caesarism which raised his ire. The ground of discord was always infinitely more material than sentimental. Among the friars, however, there were many exceptional men of charming manners and eminent virtue. If little was done to coerce the bulk of the friars to live up to the standard of these exceptions, it was said to be because the general interests of Mother Church were opposed to investigation and admonition, for fear of the consequent scandal destructive of her prestige.

The Hierarchy of the Philippines consists of one Archbishop in Manila, and four Suffragan Bishoprics, respectively of Nueva Segovia, Cebu, Jaro, and Nueva Caceres. [90] The provincials, the vicars-general, and other officers of the Religious Orders were elected by the Chapters and held office for four years. The first Bishop of Manila took possession in 1581, and the first Archbishop in 1598.

The Jesuits came to these Islands in 1581, and were expelled therefrom in 1770 by virtue of an Apostolic Brief [91] of Pope Clement XIV., but were permitted to return in 1859, on the understanding that they would confine their labours to scholastic education and the establishment of missions amongst uncivilized tribes. Consequently, in Manila they refounded their school—the Municipal Athenaeum—a mission house, and a Meteorological Observatory, whilst in many parts of Mindanao Island they have established missions, with the vain hope of converting Mahometans to Christianity. [92] The Jesuits, compared with the members of the other Orders, are very superior men, and their fraternity includes a few, and almost the only, learned ecclesiastics who came to the Colony. Since their return to the Islands (1859) in the midst of the strife with the Religious Orders, the people recognized the Jesuits as disinterested benefactors of the country.

Several Chinese have been admitted to holy orders, two of them having become Austin Friars. [93] The first native friars date their admission from the year 1700, since when there have been sixteen of the Order of St. Augustine. Subsequently they were excluded from the confraternities, and only admitted to holy orders as vicars, curates to assist parish vicars, chaplains, and in other minor offices. Up to the year 1872 native priests were appointed to benefices, but in consequence of their alleged implication in the Cavite Conspiracy of that year, their church livings, as they became vacant, were given to Spanish friars, whose headquarters were established in Manila.

The Austin Friars were the religious pioneers in these Islands; they came to Cebu in 1565 and to Manila in 1571; then followed the Franciscans in 1577; the Dominicans in 1587, a member of this Order having been ordained first Bishop of Manila, where he arrived in 1581. The Recoletos (unshod Augustinians), a branch of the Saint Augustine Order, came to the Islands in 1606; the Capuchins—the lowest type of European monk in the Far East, came to Manila in 1886, and were sent to the Caroline Islands (vide p. 45). The Paulists, of the Order of Saint Vincent de Paul, were employed in scholastic work in Nueva Caceres, Jaro, and Cebu, the same as the Jesuits were in Manila. The Benedictines came to the Islands in 1895. Only the members of the first four Orders above named were parish priests, and each (except the Franciscans) possessed agricultural land; hence the animosity of the natives was directed against these four confraternities only, and not against the others, who neither monopolized incumbencies, nor held rural property, but were simply teachers, or missionaries, whose worldly interests in no way clashed with those of the people. Therefore, whenever there was a popular outcry against "the friars," it was understood to refer solely to the Austins, the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Recoletos. [94] There was no Spanish secular clergy in the Islands, except three or four military chaplains.

The Church was financially supported by the State to the extent of about three-quarters of a million pesos per annum.

The following are some of the most interesting items taken from "The Budget for 1888," viz.:—

Sanctorum or Church tax of 18 3/4 cents (i.e., 1 1/2 reales) on each Cedula personal, say on 2,760,613 Cedulas in 1888, less 4 per cent, cost of collection P496,910.00

The friars appointed to incumbencies received in former times tithes from the Spaniards, and a Church tax from the natives computed by the amount of tribute paid. Tithe payment (diezmos prediales) by the Spaniards became almost obsolete, and the Sanctorum tax on Cedulas was paid to the Church through the Treasury (vide p. 55).

There were priests in missions and newly-formed parishes where the domiciled inhabitants were so few that the Sanctorum tax on the aggregate of the Cedulas was insufficient for their support. These missionaries were allowed salaries, and parish priests were permitted to appropriate from their revenues, as annual stipend, amounts ranging from 500 to 800 pesos, as a rule, with a few exceptions (such as Binondo parish and others), rated at 1,200 pesos, whilst one, at least (the parish priest, or missionary of Vergara, Davao Province), received 2,200 pesos a year. In practice, however, a great many parish priests spent far more than their allotted stipends.

A project was under consideration to value the incumbencies, and classify them, like the Courts of Justice (vide p. 234), with the view of apportioning to each a fixed income payable by the Treasury in lieu of accounting to the Church for the exact amount of the Sanctorum.

By decree of Gov.-General Terrero, dated November 23,1885, the State furnished free labour (by natives who did not pay poll-tax) for Church architectural works, provided it was made clear that the cost of such labour could not be covered by the surplus funds of the Sanctorum. The chief items of Church expenditure were as follows, viz.:—

State outlay for Church. P. cts.

Archbishop's salary 12,000 00 Other salaries (Cathedral) 40,300 00 Other expenses (Cathedral) 3,000 00 Four Bishops, each with a salary of P6,000 24,000 00 Court of Arches (amount contributed by the State [95]) 5,000 00 Chaplain of Los Banos 120 00 Sulu Mission 1,000 00 Mission House in Manila for Capuchin friars 1,700 00 12 Capuchins (State paid) for the Caroline and Pelew Islands—6 at P300 and 6 at P500 each per annum 4,800 00 Transport of Missionaries estimated at about, per annum 10,000 00 The anticipated total State outlay for the support of the Church, Missions, Monasteries, Convents, etc., including the above and all other items for the financial year of 1888 was P724,634 50

Moreover, the religious Corporations possessed large private revenues. The Dominicans' investments in Hong-Kong, derived from capitalized income, are still considerable. The Austin, Recoleto, and Dominican friars held very valuable real estate in the provinces, which was rented to the native agriculturists on conditions which the tenants considered onerous. The native planters were discontented with the treatment they received from these landowners, and their numerous complaints formed part of the general outcry against the regular clergy. The bailiffs of these corporation lands were unordained brothers of the Order. They resided in the Estate Houses, and by courtesy were styled "fathers" by the natives. They were under certain religious vows, but not being entitled to say Mass, they were termed "legos," or ignorant men, by their own Order.

The clergy also derived a very large portion of their incomes from commissions on the sale of cedulas, sales of Papal Bulls, masses, pictures, books, chaplets and indulgences, marriage, burial and baptismal fees, benedictions, donations touted for after the crops were raised, legacies to be paid for in masses, remains of wax candles left in the church by the faithful, fees for getting souls out of purgatory, alms, etc. The surplus revenues over and above parochial requirements were supposed to augment the common Church funds in Manila. The Corporations were consequently immensely wealthy, and their power and influence were in consonance with that wealth.

Each Order had its procurator in Madrid, who took up the cudgels in defence of his Corporation's interest in the Philippines whenever this was menaced. On the other hand, the Church, as a body politic, dispensed no charity, but received all. It was always begging; always above civil laws and taxes; claimed immunity, proclaimed poverty, and inculcated in others charity to itself.

Most of the parish priests—Spanish or native—were very hospitable to travellers, and treated them with great kindness. Amongst them there were some few misanthropes and churlish characters who did not care to be troubled by anything outside the region of their vocation, but on the whole I found them remarkably complaisant.

In Spain there were training colleges of the three Communities, in Valladolid, Ocana, and Monte Agudo respectively, for young novices intended to be sent to the Philippines, the last Spanish Colony where friars held vicarages.



The ecclesiastical archives of the Philippines abound with proofs of the bitter and tenacious strife sustained, not only between the civil and Church authorities, but even amongst the religious communities themselves. Each Order was so intensely jealous of the others, that one is almost led to ponder whether the final goal of all could have been identical. All voluntarily faced death with the same incentive, whilst amicable fellowship in this world seemed an impossibility. The first Bishop (vide p. 56) struggled in vain to create a religious monopoly in the Philippines for the exclusive benefit of the Augustine Order. It has been shown how ardent was the hatred which the Jesuits and the other Religious Orders mutually entertained for each other. Each sacred fraternity laboured incessantly to gain the ascendancy in the conquered territories, and their Divine calling served for nothing in palliating the acrimony of their reciprocal accusations and recriminations, which often involved the civil power.

For want of space I can only refer to a few of these disputes.

The Austin friars attributed to the Jesuits the troubles with the Mahometans of Mindanao and Sulu, and, in their turn, the Jesuits protested against what they conceived to be the bad policy of the Government, adopted under the influence of the other Orders in Manila. So distinct were their interests that the Augustine chroniclers refer to the other Orders as different religions.

In 1778 the Province of Pangasinan was spiritually administered by the Dominicans, whilst that of Zambales was allotted to the Recoletos. The Dominicans, therefore, proposed to the Recoletos to cede Zambales to them, because it was repugnant to have to pass through Recoleto territory going from Manila to their own province! The Recoletos were offered Mindoro Island in exchange, which they refused, until the Archbishop compelled them to yield. Disturbances then arose in Zambales, the responsibility of which was thrown on the Dominicans by their rival Order, and the Recoletos finally succeeded in regaining their old province by intrigue.

During the Governorship of Martin de Urena, Count de Lizarraga (1709-15), the Aragonese and Castilian priests quarrelled about the ecclesiastical preferments.

At the beginning of the 18th century the Bishop-elect of Cebu, Fray Pedro Saez de la Vega Lanzaverde, refused to take possession because the nomination was in partibus. He objected also that the Bishopric was merely one in perspective and not yet a reality. The See remained vacant whilst the contumacious priest lived in Mexico. Fray Sebastian de Jorronda was subsequently appointed to administer the Bishopric, but also refused, until he was coerced into submission by the Supreme Court (1718).

In 1767 the Austin friars refused to admit the episcopal visits, and exhibited such a spirit of independence that Pope Benedict XIV. was constrained to issue a Bull to exhort them to obey, admonishing them for their insubordination.

The friars of late years were subject to a visiting priest—the Provincial—in all matters de vita et moribus, to the Bishop of the diocese in all affairs of spiritual dispensation, and to the Gov.-General as vice-royal patron in all that concerned the relations of the Church to the Civil Government. [96]

An observant traveller, unacquainted with the historical antecedents of the friars in the Philippines, could not fail to be impressed by the estrangement of religious men, whose sacred mission, if genuine, ought to have formed an inseverable bond of alliance and goodfellowship.



CHAPTER XIII

Spanish Insular Government

From the days of Legaspi the supreme rule in these Islands was usually confided for indefinite periods to military men: but circumstances frequently placed naval officers, magistrates, the Supreme Court, and even ecclesiastics at the head of the local government. During the last half century of Spanish rule the common practice was to appoint a Lieut.-General as Governor, with the local rank of Captain-General pending his three-years' term of office. An exception to this rule in that period was made (1883-85) when Joaquin Jovellar, a Captain-General and ex-War Minster in Spain, was specially empowered to establish some notable reforms—the good policy of which was doubtful. Again, in 1897, Fernando Primo de Rivera, Marquis de Estella, also a Captain-General in Spain, held office in Manila under the exceptional circumstances of the Tagalog Rebellion of 1896, in succession to Ramon Blanco, Marquis de Pena Plata. Considering that Primo de Rivera, during his previous Gov.-Generalship (1880-83), had won great popularity with the Filipinos, he was deemed, in Madrid, to be the man most capable of arresting the revolutionary movement. How far the confidence of the Home Government was misplaced will be seen in Chapter xxii.

Soon after the conquest the Colony was divided and sub-divided into provinces and military districts as they gradually yielded to the Spanish sway. Such districts, called Encomiendas, [97] were then farmed out to Encomenderos, who exercised little scruple in their rigorous exactions from the natives. Some of the Encomenderos acquired wealth during the terms of their holdings, whilst others became victims to the revenge of their subjects. They must indeed have been bold, enterprising men who, in those days, would have taken charge of districts distant from the capital. It would appear that their tenure was, in a certain sense, feudal, for they were frequently called upon to aid the Central Government with vessels, men, and arms against the attacks of common enemies. Against Mahometan incursions necessity made them warriors,—if they were not so by taste,—civil engineers to open communications with their districts, administrators, judges, and all that represented social order. Encomiendas were sometimes given to Spaniards as rewards for high services rendered to the commonwealth, [98] although favouritism or (in later years) purchase-money more commonly secured the vacancies, and the holders were quite expected to make fortunes in the manner they thought fit, with due regard for the Royal Treasury (vide p. 54).

The Encomenderos were, in the course of time, superseded by Judicial Governors, called Alcaldes, who received small salaries, from L60 per annum and upwards, but were allowed to trade. The right to trade—called "indulto de comercio"—was sold to the Alcalde-Governors, except those of Tondo, [99] Zamboanga, Cavite, Nueva Ecija, Islas Batanes and Antique, whose trading right was included in the emoluments of office. The Government's object was economy.

In 1840 Eusebio Mazorca wrote thus [100]:—"The salary paid to the chiefs of provinces who enjoy the right of trade is more or less P300 per annum, and after deducting the amount paid for the trading right, which in some provinces amounts to five-sixths of the whole—as in Pangasinan; and in others to the whole of the salary—as in Caraga; and discounting again the taxes, it is not possible to conceive how the appointment can be so much sought after. There are candidates up to the grade of brigadier who relinquish a P3,000 salary to pursue their hopes and projects in governorship."

This system obtained for many years, and the abuses went on increasing. The Alcaldes practically monopolized the trade of their districts, unduly taking advantage of their governmental position to hinder the profitable traffic of the natives and bring it all into their own hands. They tolerated no competition; they arbitrarily fixed their own purchasing prices, and sold at current rates. Due to the scarcity of silver in the interior, the natives often paid their tribute to the Royal Treasury in produce,—chiefly rice,—which was received into the Royal Granaries at a ruinously low valuation, and accounted for to the State at its real value; the difference being the illicit profit made by the Alcalde. Many of these functionaries exercised their power most despotically in their own circuits, disposing of the natives' labour and chattels without remuneration, and not unfrequently, for their own ends, invoking the King's name, which imbued the native with a feeling of awe, as if His Majesty were some supernatural being.

In 1810 Tomas de Comyn wrote as follows:—"In order to be a chief of a province in these Islands, no training or knowledge or special services are necessary; all persons are fit and admissible.... It is quite a common thing to see a barber or a Governor's lackey, a sailor or a deserter, suddenly transformed into an Alcalde, Administrator, and Captain of the forces of a populous province without any counsellor but his rude understanding, or any guide but his passions." [101]

By Royal Decree of 1844 Government officials were thenceforth strictly prohibited to trade, under pain of removal from office.

In the year 1850 there were 34 Provinces, and two Political Military Commandancies. Until June, 1886, the offices of provincial Civil Governor and Chief Judge of that province were vested in the same person—the Alcalde Mayor. This created a strange anomaly, for an appeal against an edict of the Governor had to be made to himself as Judge. Then if it were taken to the central authority in Manila, it was sent back for "information" to the Judge-Governor, without independent inquiry being made in the first instance; hence protest against his acts was fruitless.

During the Regency of Queen Maria Christina, this curious arrangement was abolished by a Decree dated in Madrid, February 26, 1886, to take effect on June 1 following.

Eighteen Civil Governorships were created, and Alcaldes' functions were confined to their judgeships; moreover, the Civil Governor was assisted by a Secretary, so that two new official posts were created in each of these provinces.

The Archipelago, including Sulu, was divided into 19 Civil Provincial Governments, four Military General Divisions, 43 Military Provincial Districts, and four Provincial Governments under Naval Officers, forming a total of 70 Divisions and Sub-Divisions.



COST OF SPANISH ADMINISTRATION

P. cts.

The Gov.-General received a salary of 40,000 00

The Central Government Office, called "Gobierno General," with its Staff of Officials and all expenses 43,708 00

The General Government Centre was assisted in the General Administration of the Islands by two other Governing Bodies, namely:

The General Direction of Civil Administration 29,277 34

The Administrative Council 28,502 00

The Chief of the General Direction received a salary of P12,000, with an allowance for official visits to the Provinces of P500 per annum.

The Council was composed of three Members, each at a salary of P4,700, besides a Secretary and officials.

Seventy divisions and sub-divisions as follows, viz.:—

CIVIL GOVERNMENTS

Manila Pce Salary of Civil Governor P5,000 Total Cost. 20,248 00

Alday, Batangas, Bulacan, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Laguna, Pampanga, Pangasinan. Eight First-Class Govts.: Salary of each Civil Gov. P4,500 Total cost of each Govt. P8,900 Eight First-Class Govts. cost 71,200 00

Bataan, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Mindoro, Nueva Eclia, Tayabas, Zambales. Seven Second-Class Govts.: Salary of each Civil Gov. P4,000 Total cost of each Govt. P7,660 Seven Second-Class Govts. cost 53,620 00

Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya Three Third-Class Govts.: Salary of each Civil Gov. P3,500 Total cost of each Govt. P6,700 Three Third-Class Govts. cost 20,100 00

MILITARY GENERAL GOVERNMENTS



Under a Brig.-Gen. and Staff

Gen. Division of S. Visayas 10,975 00 Gen. Division of N. Visayas 10,975 00 Gen. Division of Mindanao 17,825 00 Gen. Division of Cavite 6,596 66



MILITARY PROVINCES AND DISTRICTS



Under a Colonel and Staff

Sulu 7,240 00 Yloilo 4,410 00 Cottabato 5,426 00

Under a Lieut.-Colonel and Staff

East Carolines and Pelew Islands 4,900 00 West Carolines and Pelew Islands 5,970 00 Cebu 3,500 00 Capiz 3,500 00 Misamis 4,816 66 Ladrone Islands 4,975 00

Under a Major and Staff

Zamboanga 3,856 66 Surigao 4,356 66 Davao 4,156 66 Dapitan 2,692 00 Zucuran 2,692 00

La Union, Antique, Samar, Leyte, El Abra, Bojol, Tarlac, Negros, Morong Each under a Major:— Nine Districts @ P3,040 27,360 00 Batanes, Calamianes, Romblun, Benguet, Lepanto, Burias, Infante, Principe, Bontoc, Concepcion: Each under a Captain:— Ten Districts @ P1,980 19,800 00

Cagayan (Mindanao)—Biling, Nueva Vizcaya, Sasangani (Palauan) Each under a Captain:— Five Districts @ P1,792 8,960 00

Siassi, Bongao, Tatoan Each under a Captain:— Three Districts @ P2,032 6,096 00 Escalante, [102] under a Lieutenant 1,525 00

Masbate, under a Cavalry Sub-Lieutenant 1,450 00

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS UNDER NAVAL OFFICERS, OFFICERS IN CHARGE OF NAVAL STATIONS AS EX-OFFICIO GOVERNORS

Corregidor 3,821 00 Balabac 3,960 00 Isabela de Basilan 5,276 66 Palauan (Puerta Princesa) 6,910 00

Total cost of General Government of the Islands 500,677 96

Deduct— Officers' Pay, etc., included in Army Estimates P145,179 96 Officers' Pay, etc., included in Navy Estimates 14,640 00

159,819 96

P340,858 00

The Spanish Government intended, in due course, to establish Civil Government throughout the Islands. A Civil Governor was the representative of the Gov.-General, whose orders and decrees he had to publish and execute at his own discretion. He could not absent himself from his province without permission. He had to maintain order, veto petitions for arms' licences, hold under his orders and dispose of the Civil Guard, Carabineers, and local guards. He could suspend the pay for ten days of any subordinate official who failed to do his duty, or he could temporarily suspend him in his functions with justifiable cause, and propose to the Gov.-General his definite removal. He had to preside at all municipal elections; to bring delinquents to justice; to decree the detention on suspicion of any individual, and place him at the disposal of the chief judge within three days after his capture; to dictate orders for the government of the towns and villages; to explain to the petty-governors the true interpretation of the law and regulations affecting their districts.

The Governor was chief of police, and could impose fines up to P50 without the intervention of judicial authority; and in the event of the mulcted person being unable to pay, he could order his imprisonment at the rate of one day's detention for each half-peso of the fine; it was provided, however, that the imprisonment could not exceed 30 days in any case. He had to preside at the ballot for military conscription, but he could delegate this duty to his Secretary, or, failing him, to the Administrator. Where no harbour-master had been appointed, the Civil Governor acted as such. He had the care of the primary instruction; and it was his duty specially to see that the native scholars were taught the Spanish language. Land concessions, improvements tending to increase the wealth of the province, permits for felling timber, and the collection of excise taxes were all under his care. He had also to furnish statistics relating to the labour poll-tax; draw up the provincial budget; render provincial and municipal accounts, etc., all of which had to be counter-signed under the word Intervine by the Secretary. He was provincial postmaster-general, chief of telegraph service, prisons, charities, board of health, public works, woods and forests, mines, agriculture and industry. Under no circumstances could he dispose of the public funds, which were in the care of the Administrator and Interventor, and he was not entitled to any percentages (as Alcalde-Governors formerly were), or any emoluments whatsoever further than his fixed salary.

A Governor had to be a Spaniard over 30 years of age. It is curious to note, from its political significance, that among the many classes of persons eligible for a Civil Governorship were those who had been Members of the Spanish Parliament or Senate during one complete session.

Upon the whole, a Provincial Governor passed life very comfortably if he did not go out of his way to oppress his subjects and create discord. His tranquillity, nevertheless, was always dependent upon his maintaining a good understanding with the priesthood of his district, and his conformity with the demands of the friars. If he had the misfortune to cross their path, it brought him a world of woe, and finally his downfall. There have been Provincial Governors who in reality held their posts by clerical influence, whilst others who exercised a more independent spirit—who set aside Church interests to serve those of the State, with which they were intrusted—fell victims to sacerdotal intrigue; for the subordinates of the hierarchy had power to overthrow as well as to support those who were appointed to their districts. Few improvements appear to have been made in the provinces by the initiative of the local Governors, nor did they seem to take any special interest in commercial and agricultural advancement. This lack of interest was somewhat excusable and comprehensible, however, seeing that after they were appointed, and even though they governed well within the strict limitations of their office, they were constantly expecting that a ministerial change or the fall of a single minister might remove them from their posts, or that the undermining influence of favouritism might succeed in accomplishing their withdrawal. It was natural, therefore, that they should have been indifferent about the fostering of new agricultural enterprises, of opening tracks for bringing down timber, of facilitating trade, or of in any way stimulating the development of the resources of a province when the probability existed that they would never have the personal satisfaction of seeing the result of their efforts.

Some Governors with whom I am personally acquainted have, in spite of all discouragement, studied the wants of their provinces, but to no purpose. Their estimates for road-making and mending, bridge-building, and public works generally were shelved in Manila, whilst the local funds (Fondos locales), which ought to have been expended in the localities where they were collected, were seized by the authorities in the capital and applied to other purposes.

An annual statement of one province will be sufficient, as an example, to illustrate the nature of this local tax:—

LOCAL FUNDS [103]—ALBAY PROVINCE

Provincial Revenue

P. cts. P. cts. Stamps on Weights and Measures 2,490 00 Billiard Tax and Live Stock credentials 496 00 90% of fines for shirking forced labour 1,500 00 Tax in lieu of forced labour 85,209 00 Vehicle tax 4,000 00

93,695 00

Municipal Revenue

Tax paid by sellers in the public market-place 7,050 00 Tax on slaughter of animals for food 12,098 00 Tax on local sales of hemp 40 00 90% of the Municipal fines and tax on Chinese 554 00 10% on tithes paid and house-property tax 380 00 10% on Industrial licences 5,710 00 10% on Alcohol licences 2,525 00

28,357 00 ======== == P122,052 00

In the same year this province contributed to the common funds of the Treasury a further sum of P133,009.

There was in each town another local tax called Caja de Comunidad, contributed to by the townspeople to provide against any urgent necessity of the community, but it found its way to Manila and was misappropriated, like the Fondos locales.

There was not a peso at the disposal of the Provincial Governor for local improvements. If a bridge broke down so it remained for years, whilst thousands of travellers had to wade through the river unless a raft were put there at the expense of the very poorest people by order of the petty-governor of the nearest village. The "Tribunal," which served the double purpose of Town Hall and Dak Bungalow for wayfarers, was often a hut of bamboo and palm-leaves, whilst others, which had been decent buildings generations gone by, lapsed into a wretched state of dilapidation. In some villages there was no Tribunal at all, and the official business had to be transacted in the municipal Governor's house. I first visited Calamba (La Laguna) in 1880, and for 14 years, to my knowledge, the headmen had to meet in a sugar-store in lieu of a Tribunal. In San Jose de Buenavista, the capital town of Antique Province, the Town Hall was commenced in good style and left half finished during 15 years. Either some one for pity's sake, or the headmen for their own convenience, went to the expense of thatching over half the unfinished structure, which was therefore saved from entire ruin, whilst all but the stone walls of the other half rotted away. So it continued until 1887, when the Government authorized a partial restoration of this building.

As to the roads connecting the villages, quite 20 per cent. of them serve only for travellers on foot, on horse or on buffalo back at any time, and in the wet season certainly 60 per cent, of all the Philippine highways are in too bad a state for any kind of passenger conveyance to pass with safety. In the wet season, many times I have made a sea journey in a prahu, simply because the highroad near the coast had become a mud-track, for want of macadamized stone and drainage, and only serviceable for transport by buffalo. In the dry season the sun mended the roads, and the traffic over the baked clods reduced them more or less to dust, so that vehicles could pass. Private property-owners expended much time and money in the preservation of public roads, although a curious law existed prohibiting repairs to highways by non-official persons.

Every male adult inhabitant (with certain specified exceptions) had to give the State fifteen days' labour per annum, or redeem that labour by payment. Of course thousands of the most needy class preferred to give their fifteen days. This labour and the redemption-money were only theoretically employed in local improvements. This system was reformed in 1884 (vide p. 224).

The Budget for 1888 showed the trivial sum of P120,000 to be used in road-making and mending in the whole Archipelago. It provided for a Chief Inspector of Public Works with a salary of P6,500, aided by a staff composed of 48 technical and 82 non-technical subordinates. As a matter of fact, the Provincial and District Governors often received intimation not to encourage the employment of labour for local improvements, but to press the labouring-class to pay the redemption-tax to swell the central coffers, regardless of the corresponding misery, discomfort, and loss to trade in the interior. But labour at the Governor's disposal was not alone sufficient. There was no fund from which to defray the cost of materials; or, if these could be found without payment, some one must pay for the transport by buffaloes and carts and find the implements for the labourers' use. How could hands alone repair a bridge which had rotted away? To cut a log of wood for the public service would have necessitated communications with the Inspection of Woods and Forests and other centres and many months' delay.



The system of controlling the action of one public servant by appointing another under him to supervise his work has always found favour in Spain, and was adopted in this Colony. There were a great many Government employments of the kind which were merely sinecures. In many cases the pay was small, it is true, but the labour was often of proportionately smaller value than that pay. With very few exceptions, all the Government Offices in Manila were closed to the public during half the ordinary working-day,—the afternoon,—and many of the Civil Service officials made their appearance at their desks about ten o'clock in the morning, retiring shortly after mid-day, when they had smoked their habitual number of cigarettes.

The crowd of office-seekers were indifferent to the fact that the true source of national vigour is the spirit of individual self-dependence. Constant clamour for Government employment tends only to enfeeble individual effort, and destroys the stimulus, or what is of greater worth, the necessity of acting for one's self. The Spaniard (except the Basque and the Catalonian) looks to the Government for active and direct aid, as if the Public Treasury were a natural spring at the waters of which all temporal calamities could be washed away—all material wants supplied. He will tell you with pride rather than with abashment that he is an empleado—a State dependent.

National progress is but the aggregate of personal individual activity rightly directed, and a nation weakens as a whole as its component parts become dormant, or as the majority rely upon the efforts of the few. The spirit of Caesarism—"all for the people and nothing by them"—must tend not only to political slavery, but to a reduction in commercial prosperity, national power, and international influence. The Spaniards have indeed proved this fact. The best laws were never intended to provide for the people, but to regulate the conditions on which they could provide for themselves. The consumers of public wealth in Spain are far too numerous in proportion to the producers; hence not only is the State constantly pressed for funds, but the busy bees who form the nucleus of the nation's vitality are heavily taxed to provide for the dependent office-seeking drones. It is the fatal delusion that liberty and national welfare depend solely upon good government, instead of good government depending upon united and co-operative individual exertion, that has brought the Spanish nation to its present state of deplorable impotence.

The Government itself is but the official counterpart of the governed. By the aid of servile speculators, a man in political circles struggles to come to the front—to hold a portfolio in the ministry—if it only be for a session, when his pension for life is assured on his retirement. Merit and ability have little weight, and the proteges of the outgoing minister must make room for those of the next lucky ministerial pension-seeker, and so on successively. This Colony therefore became a lucrative hunting-ground at the disposal of the Madrid Cabinet wherein to satisfy the craving demands of their numerous partisans and friends. They were sent out with a salary and to make what they could,—at their own risk, of course,—like the country lad who was sent up to London with the injunction from his father, "Make money, honestly if you can, but make it."

From the Conquest up to 1844, when trading by officials was abolished, it was a matter of little public concern how Government servants made fortunes. Only when the jealousy of one urged him to denounce another was any inquiry instituted so long as the official was careful not to embezzle or commit a direct fraud on the Real Haber (the Treasury funds). When the Real Haber was once covered, then all that could be got out of the Colony was for the benefit of the officials, great and small. In 1840, Eusebio Mazorca wrote as follows: [104]—"Each chief of a province is a real sultan, and when he has terminated his administration, all that is talked of in the capital is the thousands of pesos clear gain which he made in his Government."

Eusebio Mazorca further states: [105]—"The Governor receives payment of the tribute in rice-paddy, which he credits to the native at two reales in silver per caban. Then he pays this sum into the Royal Treasury in money, and sells the rice-paddy for private account at the current rate of six, eight or more reales in silver per caban, and this simple operation brings him 200 to 300 per cent. profit."

The same writer adds:—"Now quite recently the Interventor of Zamboanga is accused by the Governor of that place of having made some P15,000 to P16,000 solely by using false measures ... The same Interventor to whom I refer, is said to have made a fortune of P50,000 to P60,000, whilst his salary as second official in the Audit Department [106] is P540 per annum." According to Zuniga, the salary of a professor of law with the rank of magistrate was P800 per annum.

Up to June, 1886, the provincial taxes being in the custody of the Administrator, the Judicial Governor had a percentage assigned to him to induce him to control the Administrator's work. The Administrator himself had percentages, and the accounts of these two functionaries were checked by a third individual styled the "Interventor," whose duties appeared to be to intervene in the casting-up of his superiors' figures. He was forbidden to reside with the Administrator. After the above date the payment of all these percentages ceased.

But for the peculations by Government officials from the highest circles downwards, the inhabitants of the Colony would doubtless have been a million or so richer per annum. One frequently heard of officials leaving for Spain with sums far exceeding the total emoluments they had received during their term of office. Some provincial employees acquired a pernicious habit of annexing what was not theirs by all manner of pretexts. To cite some instances: I knew a Governor of Negros Island who seldom saw a native pass the Government House with a good horse without begging it of him; thus, under fear of his avenging a refusal, his subjects furnished him little by little with a large stud, which he sold before he left, much to their disgust.

In another provincial capital there happened to be a native headman imprudently vain enough to carry a walking-stick with a chased gold-knob handle studded with brilliants. It took the fancy of the Spanish Governor, who repeatedly expressed his admiration of it, hoping that the headman would make him a present of it. At length, when the Governor was relieved of his post, he called together the headmen to take formal leave of them, and at the close of a flattering speech, he said he would willingly hand over his official-stick as a remembrance of his command. In the hubbub of applause which followed, he added, "and I will retain a souvenir of my loyal subordinates." Suiting the action to the word, he snatched the coveted stick out of the hand of the owner and kept it. A Gov.-General in my time enriched himself by peculation to such an extent that he was at his wits' end to know how to remit his ill-gotten gains clandestinely. Finally, he resolved to send an army Captain over to Hong-Kong with P35,000 to purchase a draft on Europe for him. The Captain went there, but he never returned.



There were about 725 towns and 23 missions in the Colony. Each town was locally governed by a native—in some cases a Spanish or Chinese half-caste—who was styled the petty-governor or Gobernadorcillo, whilst his popular title was that of Capitan. This service was compulsory. The elections of Gobernadorcillos and their subordinates took place every two years, the term of office counting from the July 1 following such elections. In the few towns where the Gobernadorcillos were able to make considerable sums, the appointment was eagerly sought for, but as a rule it was considered an onerous task, and I know several who have paid bribes to the officials to rid them of it, under the pretext of ill-health, legal incapacity, and so on. The Gobernadorcillo was supported by what was pompously termed a "ministry," composed of two lieutenants of the town, lieutenants of the wards, the chiefs of police, of plantations, and of live-stock.

The Gobernadorcillo was nominally the delegate and practically the servant of his immediate chief, the Provincial Governor. He was the arbiter of local petty questions, and endeavoured to adjust them, but when they assumed a legal aspect, they were remitted to the local Justice of the Peace, who was directly subordinate to the Provincial Chief Judge. He was also responsible to the Administrator for the collection of taxes—to the Chief of the Civil Guard for the capture of criminals, and to the priest of his parish for the interests of the Church. His responsibility for the taxes to be collected sometimes brought him imprisonment, unless he succeeded in throwing the burden on the actual collectors—the Cabezas de Barangay.

The Gobernadorcillo was often put to considerable expense in the course of his two years, in entertaining and supplying the wants of officials passing through. To cover this outlay, the loss of his own time, the salaries of writers in the Town Hall, presents to his Spanish chiefs to secure their goodwill, and other calls upon his private income, he naturally had to exact funds from the townspeople. Legally, he could receive, if he chose (but few did), the munificent salary of P2 per month, and an allowance for clerks equal to about one-fifth of what he had to pay them. Some of these Gobernadorcillos were well-to-do planters, and were anxious for the office, even if it cost them money, on account of the local prestige which the title of "Capitan" gave them, but others were often so poor that if they had not pilfered, this compulsory service would have ruined them. However, a smart Gobernadorcillo was rarely out of pocket by his service. One of the greatest hardships of his office was that he often had to abandon his plantation or other livelihood to go to the provincial capital at his own expense whenever he was cited there. Many of them who did not speak or understand Spanish had to pay and be at the mercy of a Secretary (Directorcillo), who was also a native.

When any question arose of general interest to the townspeople (such as a serious innovation in the existing law, or the annual feasts, or the anticipated arrival of a very big official, etc.) the headmen (principalia) were cited to the Town Hall. They were also expected to assemble there every Sunday and Great Feast Days (three-cross Saint days in the Calendar), to march thence in procession to the church to hear Mass, under certain penalties if they failed to attend. Each one carried his stick of authority; and the official dress was a short Eton jacket of black cloth over the shirt, the tail of which hung outside the trousers. Some Gobernadorcillos, imbued with a sense of the importance and solemnity of office, ordered a band to play lively dance music at the head of the cortege to and from the church. After Mass they repaired to the convent, and on bended knee kissed the priest's hand. Town affairs were then discussed. Some present were chided, others were commended by their spiritual dictator.

In nearly every town the people were, and still are, divided into parties holding divergent views on town affairs, each group being ready to give the other a "stab in the back" when the opportunity offers, and not unfrequently these differences seriously affect the social relations of the individual members.

For the direct collection of taxes each township was sub-divided into groups of forty or fifty families called Barangays: each group had to pay taxes to its respective head, styled Cabeza de Barangay, who was responsible to the petty-governor, who in turn made the payment to the Provincial Administrator for remission to the Treasury (Intendencia) in Manila. This Barangay chiefdom system took its origin from that established by the natives themselves prior to the Spanish conquest, and in some parts of the Colony the original title of datto was still applied to the chief. This position, hereditary among themselves, continued to be so for many years under Spanish rule, and was then considered an honourable distinction because it gave the heads of certain families a birthright importance in their class. Later on they were chosen, like all the other native local authorities, every two years, but if they had anything to lose, they were invariably re-elected. In order to be ranked among the headmen of the town (the principalia), a Barangay chief had to serve for ten years in that capacity unless he were, meanwhile, elected to a higher rank, such as lieutenant or gobernadorcillo. Everybody, therefore, shirked the repugnant obligations of a chiefdom, for the Government rarely recognized any bad debts in the collection of the taxes, until the chief had been made bankrupt and his goods and chattels sold to make good the sums which he could not collect from his group, whether it arose from their poverty, death, or from their having absconded. I have been present at auction sales of live-stock seized to supply taxes to the Government, which admitted no excuses or explanations. Many Barangay chiefs went to prison through their inability or refusal to pay others' debts. On the other hand, there were among them some profligate characters who misappropriated the collected taxes, but the Government had really little right to complain, for the labour of tax-gathering was a forced service without remuneration for expenses or loss of time incurred.

In many towns, villages, and hamlets there were posts of the Civil Guard established for the arrest of criminals and the maintenance of public order; moreover, there was in each town a body of guards called Cuadrilleros for the defence of the town and the apprehension of bandits and criminals within the jurisdiction of the town only. The town and the wards together furnished these local guards, whose social position was one of the humblest and least enviable. There were frequent cases of Cuadrilleros passing over to a band of brigands. Some years ago the whole muster belonging to the town of Mauban (Tayabas) suddenly took to the mountains; on the other hand, many often rendered valuable aid to society, but their doubtful reliability vastly diminished their public utility.

From the time Philippine administration was first organized up to the year 1884, all the subdued natives paid tribute. Latterly it was fixed at one peso and ten cents per annum, and those who did not choose to work for the Government during forty days in the year, paid also a poll-tax (fallas) of P3 per annum. But, as a matter of fact, thousands were declared as workers who never did work, and whilst roads were in an abominable condition and public works abandoned, not much secret was made of the fact that a great portion of the poll-tax never reached the Treasury. These pilferings were known to the Spanish local authorities as caidas or droppings; and in a certain province I met at table a provincial chief judge, the nephew of a general, and other persons who openly discussed the value of the different Provincial Governments (before 1884) in Luzon Island, on the basis of so much for salary and so much for fees and caidas.

However, although the tribute and fallas system worked as well as any other would under the circumstances, for some reason, best known to the authorities, it was abolished. In lieu thereof a scheme was proposed, obliging every civilized inhabitant of the Philippines, excepting only public servants, the clergy, and a few others, to work for fifteen days per annum without the right of redeeming this obligation by payment. Indeed, the decree to that effect was actually received in Manila from the Home Government, but it was so palpably ludicrous that the Gov.-General did not give it effect. He had sufficient common sense to foresee in its application the extinction of all European prestige and moral influence over the natives if Spanish and foreign gentlemen of good family were seen sweeping the streets, lighting the lamps, road-mending, guiding buffalo-carts loaded with stones, and so on. This measure, therefore, regarded by some as a practical joke, by others as the conception of a lunatic theorist—was withdrawn, or at least allowed to lapse.

Nevertheless, those in power were bent on reform, and the Peninsular system of a document of identity (Cedula personal), which works well amongst Europeans, was then adopted for all civilized classes and nationalities above the age of 18 years without exception, its possession being compulsory. The amount paid for this document, which was of nine classes, [107] from P25 value downwards, varied according to the income of the holder or the cost of his trading-licences. Any person holding this document of a value under P3 1/2 was subject to fifteen days' forced labour per annum, or to pay 50 cents for each day he failed to work. The holder of a document of P3 1/2 or over paid also P1 1/2 "Municipal Tax" in lieu of labour. The "Cedula" thenceforth served as a passport for travelling within the Archipelago, to be exhibited at any time on demand by the proper authority. No legal document was valid unless the interested parties had produced their Cedulas, the details of which were inscribed in the legal instrument. No petitions would be noticed, and very few transactions could be made in the Government offices without the presentation of this identification document. The decree relating to this reform, like most ambiguous Spanish edicts, set forth that any person was at liberty to take a higher-valued Cedula than that corresponding to his position, without the right of any official to ask the reason why. This clause was prejudicial to the public welfare, because it enabled thousands of able-bodied natives to evade labour for public improvements of imperative necessity in the provinces. The public labour question was indeed altogether a farce, and simply afforded a pretext for levying a tax.

It would appear that whilst the total amount of taxation in Spanish times was not burdensome, the fiscal system was obviously defective.

The (American) Insular Government has continued the issue of the Cedula on a reasonable plan which bears hard on no one. Forced labour is abolished; government work is paid for out of the taxes; and the uniform cost of the Cedula is one peso for every male between the ages of 18 and 60 years.

In 1890 certain reforms were introduced into the townships, most of which were raised to the dignity of Municipalities. The titles of Gobernadorcillo and Directorcillo (the words themselves in Spanish bear a sound of contempt) were changed to Capitan Municipal and Secretario respectively (Municipal Captain and Secretary) with nominally extended powers. For instance, the Municipal Captains were empowered to disburse for public works, without appeal to Manila, a few hundred pesos in the year (to be drawn, in some cases, from empty public coffers, or private purses). The functions of the local Justices of the Peace were amplified and abused to such a degree that these officials became more the originators of strife than the guardians of peace. The old-established obligation to supply travellers, on payment therefor, with certain necessaries of life and means of transport was abolished.

Hitherto it had been the custom for a traveller on arriving at a town without knowing any one there, or without letters of introduction, to alight (by right) at the Tribunal, or Town Hall. Each such establishment had, or ought to have had, a tariff of necessary provisions and the means of travelling to the next town (such as ponies, gigs, hammocks, sedan-chairs, etc., according to the particular conditions of the locality). Each Barangay or Cabezeria furnished one Cuadrillero (vide pp. 223, 224) for the service of the Tribunal, so that the supply of baggage-carriers, bearers, etc., which one needed could not be refused on payment. The native official in charge of this service to travellers, and in control of the Cuadrilleros, was styled the Alguacil. Hence the Tribunal served the double purpose of Town Hall and casual ward for wayfarers. There were all sorts of Tribunales, from the well-built stone and wood house to the poverty-stricken bamboo shanty where one had to pass the night on the floor or on the table.

By decree of Gov.-General Weyler (1888-91) dated October 17, 1888, which came into force on January 1, 1889, the obligation of the Tribunal officials to supply provisions to travelling civilians had been already abolished, although, under both reforms, civilians could continue to take refuge at the Tribunal as theretofore. Notwithstanding the reform of 1890, until the American advent the European traveller found it no more difficult than before to procure en route the requisite means for provincial travelling.



CHAPTER XIV

Spanish-Philippine Finances

The secession of Mexico from the Spanish Crown in the second decade of last century brought with it a complete revolution in Philippine affairs. Direct trade with Europe through one channel or another had necessarily to be permitted. The "Situado," or subsidy (vide p. 244), received from Mexico became a thing of the past, and necessity urged the home authorities to relax, to a certain extent, the old restraint on the development of Philippine resources.

In 1839 the first Philippine Budget was presented in the Spanish Cortes, but so little interest did the affairs of the Colony excite that it provoked no discussion. After the amendment of only one item the Budget was adopted in silence. It was not the practice in the earliest years to publish the full Philippine Budget in the Islands, although allusion was necessarily made to items of it in the Gaceta de Manila. However, it could be seen without difficulty in Madrid. Considering that the Filipinos had no political rights, except for the very brief period alluded to in Chapter xxii. (vide Cortes de Cadiz), it is evident that popular discussion of public finance would have been undesirable, because it could have led to no practical issue.

There is apparently no record of the Philippine Islands having been at any time in a flourishing financial condition. With few exceptions, in latter years the collected revenue of the Colony was usually much less than the estimated yield of taxes. The Budget for 1888 is here given in detail as an example.

PHILIPPINE BUDGETS

Financial Estimated Income Difference. Year. Income. Realized. P P P 1884-85 11,298,508.98 9,893,745.87 1,404,763.11 1885-86 11,528,178.00 9,688,029.70 1,840,148.30 1886-87 11,554,379.00 9,324,974.08 2,229,404.92 1894-95 13,280,139.40 13,579,900.00 299,760.60 1896-97 17,086,423.00 17,474,000.00 387,577.00

ANTICIPATED REVENUE, YEAR 1888

P cts.

Direct Taxes 5,206,836 93

Customs Dues 2,023,400 00

Government Monopolies (stamps, cock-fighting, opium, gambling, etc.) 1,181,239 00 Lotteries and Raffles 513,200 00 Sale of State property 153,571 00 War and Marine Department (sale of useless articles. Gain on repairs to private ships in the Government Arsenal) 15,150 00 Sundries 744,500 00

9,837,896 93

Anticipated Expenditure, year 1888 9,825,633 29

Anticipated Surplus P 12,263 64

The actual deficit in the last previous Budget for which there was no provision was estimated at P1,376,179.56, against which the above balance would be placed. There were some remarkable inconsistencies in the 1888 Budget. The Inspection of Woods and Forests was an institution under a Chief Inspector with a salary of P6,500, assisted by a technical staff of 64 persons and 52 non-technical subordinates. The total cost for the year was estimated at P165,960, against which the expected income derived from duties on felled timber was P80,000; hence a loss of P85,960 was duly anticipated to satisfy office-seekers. Those who wished to cut timber were subjected to very complicated and vexatious regulations. The tariff of duties and mode of calculating it were capriciously modified from time to time on no commercial basis whatever. Merchants who had contracted to supply timber at so much per foot for delivery within a fixed period were never sure of their profits; for the dues might, meanwhile, be raised without any consideration for trading interests. The most urgent material want of the Colony was easy means of communication with the interior of the Islands. Yet, whilst this was so sadly neglected, the Budget provided the sum of P113,686.64 for a School of Agriculture in Manila and 10 model farms and Schools of Cultivation in the provinces. It was not the want of farming knowledge, but the scarcity of capital and the scandalous neglect of public highways and bridges for transport of produce which retarded agriculture. The 113,000 pesos, if disbursed on roads, bridges, town halls, and landing-jetties, would have benefited the Colony; as it was, this sum went to furnish salaries to needy Spaniards.