Soon still other troubles arose. The rulers who came after Legaspi did away, one by one, with the native forms of government. There were no longer any tribal councils in which the heads of groups could speak for their people. The native kings and chiefs were set aside, and the people then had no representatives. There was nothing to check the power of the governor-general. He had full control over the lives and liberties of the people, and no one could call him to account but the king of Spain.
In name the ancient office of head of a hundred still lived in the office of “cabeza de barangay” (cäbā´thä dā bär än’gī), which the Spanish kept up. The office itself, however, was no longer high or honorable. The chief duty of the cabeza de barangay came to be the raising of money among the people for the government. If the people were poor, if times were bad, if the crops had failed, still this money must be raised. The government looked to the barangay chief to get it, in one way or another. Often, when the people were unable to pay, his property was taken, and many a headman of a village was stripped of all he had by the officers of government. In time, therefore, the office fell into such disgrace that no self-respecting Filipino would take it. At last a law had to be passed compelling service as cabeza de barangay.
Very early in the history of the colony there began to be strife among the Spanish authorities. The bitter misunderstanding between Church and State arose almost at once, and it continued through all the years of Spanish rule in the islands. Soon after its formation, the Supreme Court, too, became a party in the quarrels of the powers. Each of these three parties was determined to control matters, and the result was very bad for the colony. At times, indeed, the quarrel was so sharp that affairs in the country were at a standstill, and ruin threatened the colony.
KING PHILIP II.
So matters went on until the year 1587, when they became so bad that the Bishop of Manila sent a secret messenger to Spain to lay complaint before the king. This messenger was a friar named Alonzo Sanchez (älon´thō sän’cheth). He went first to Mexico and laid his case before the viceroy, who sent him on to Spain. There he gained a hearing from King Philip II., who promised to look into the matter.
The king then put the case in charge of one of his ministers, who studied it with great care, and at last made a report which was the basis of a royal decree. In this decree the king gave attention to a good many things that were wrong in the islands, and made some definite laws in regard to them.
The decree did away altogether with the Supreme Court, and appointed justices of the peace in its place. It set forth plainly just what should be the field of action of the State and what of the Church. It gave the governor-general full power to do as he liked in matters regarding all distant and unexplored parts of the country. In what he did in such places he need not consult even the king’s will. If, however, he wished to undertake a war, or any expedition that must be paid for out of the royal treasury, he must first submit his plans to a council made up of the Bishop of Manila and the chief military captains in the islands.
The decree also forbade the making of any more slaves in the islands. All slaves held by Spaniards were to be set free at once. All between the ages of ten and twenty years, held by Filipinos, were to be freed at the latter age, and all over twenty years old were to be set free in five years.
Arrangement was made for a tribute to be raised from among the people. The money so gathered was to be divided in a fixed ratio between the Church, the State, and the army. All begging friars—and of these many had come to the country—were ordered to leave the Philippines, and forty Augustine friars were sent out to Manila.