Much contradictory legislation appears in the laws of the Indies relative to the method of taking residencias; this due to the reforms made from time to time. These laws were formulated for a growing empire. A chronological review of them will show that the residencia was at first more or less of an experiment. Indeed, all the colonial institutions were in the early periods passing through an experimental stage and these seemingly contradictory laws were promulgated or repealed, according to their success or failure when put into effect. Whenever, therefore, two laws appear to be in conflict, the one of later date will be found to supersede and repeal the earlier one.[28] In illustration of this characteristic of the laws of the Indies we may note the following example: The cédula of December 4, 1630, ordered that the residencia of the governor should be taken by his successor. This law was seldom, if ever, observed. Owing to the distance from Spain and New Spain, and the consequent length of time consumed in voyages, to the unhealthful climate, and to the dangerous military campaigns in which the governors were compelled to engage, death frequently intervened before the successor of a governor arrived. These conditions (which were characteristic of all of Spain’s colonies) did not prevent the residencia from being taken, but caused the law to be modified by the cédula of December 28, 1667, according to which judges for the residencias of viceroys and presidents-governor and captains-general were to be designated by the court. The period of four months, which had been authorized for the taking of residencias by the cédula of August 30, 1582, was extended to six months.[29] A change was necessary, the new law declared, in order to put a stop to the incessant strife, and the malice which had been shown by viceroys, governors, and ministers in the taking of residencias. The king determined that henceforth the judge of residencias should be designated by the court. The magistrate usually named was the decano. After 1776 the regent almost invariably conducted these investigations. The important reform of August 24, 1799, ordered that judges of residencia for governors, viceroys, presidents, governors-intendant, corregidor-intendants, and presidents of the Council of the Indies should be appointed by the king.[30]
The first residencia to be conducted in the Philippines in accordance with the new law of November 28, 1667, was that of Governor Salcedo, in 1670. This governor had been removed by the commissary of the Inquisition on October 10, 1668, and Francisco Coloma, the decano, was ordered to take his residencia.[31] Coloma’s intervention in the matter was protested by the audiencia in a letter to the Council of the Indies, dated April 7, 1670, on the grounds that the senior oidor was also the asesor and possible successor of the governor, and for that reason he was disqualified from taking the latter’s residencia.[32]
The audiencia suspended the proposed action of Coloma, pending the reply of the Council of the Indies. In addition to the protest of the audiencia, the fiscal, on May 20, 1670, sent a report of the case to the court, which act was in fulfillment of his regular duties as fiscal, as prescribed by the laws of the Indies.[33] The notes from Manila were effective in bringing about the desired results. Upon receipt of the communications, the Council of the Indies, on June 17, 1671, ordered the nullification of all former cédulas, cancelled Coloma’s appointment to take the residencia in question, on the grounds that he had been the governor’s asesor, and appointed Fernando de Montemayor, the oidor next in rank, to conduct the residencia of the governor.[34] Salcedo had already been dead three years, and two more transpired before his residencia was completed and the autos thereof reviewed by the Council.
The laws provided ample opportunity for appeal in cases of residencia. The cédula of November 17, 1526, ordered that appeals might be made to the Council of the Indies from judges of residencia in cases involving liabilities in excess of 600 pesos.[35] Many appeals were made to the Council in accord with this law, and the time of the tribunal was consumed in the consideration of matters comparatively of small importance. To obviate this defect the law was changed on August 7, 1568, to provide that no case could be appealed to the Council of the Indies unless the sentence imposed capital punishment or deprivation of office.[36] The cédula of June 23, 1608, ordered that if the fine imposed upon the governor and ministers of the Philippines did not exceed one thousand pesos the case should be finished in the audiencia.[37] Cases involving a greater amount were to be appealed to the Council. Sentence of judges of residencia were not to be executed pending the trial of appeals to the audiencia and the Council of the Indies.[38]
Philip IV initiated further reforms in regard to appeal in 1636. Ordenanza LVI, promulgated at that time, provided that “the said Council [of the Indies] may only have jurisdiction over the visits and residencias of the viceroys, presidents, oidores, and officials of our audiencias and accountants and officials of the tribunals of accounts, officials of the treasury and those of the governors provided by the Council with our titles.”[39] Ordenanza LXII, issued at the same time, ordered that “in the visits and residencias which are seen and determined in our Council of the Indies,” cases did not have to be referred to the king for consultation, excepting when, in “the residencias of viceroys, presidents, and oidores, alcaldes del crimen, and fiscales of our royal audiencias of the Indies and governors of the principal provinces there, condemnations of corporal punishment, privation or suspension from office result against them.”[40] In these cases the Council was ordered to submit its decisions and all papers bearing thereon to the king before passing judgment, so that the final judgment might be rendered by the sovereign in person. The Council could take final action in the residencias of military and naval officials without consulting the king. It was, of course, impossible for the sovereign to give his personal attention to any of these matters, but the last word was pronounced in these suits by responsible ministers of the court who stood high in the royal estimation.
Officials were usually obliged to submit to residencia before leaving the colony, also before their promotion to higher posts.[41] Owing, however, to the paucity of ships plying to New Spain and to the length of time elapsing between sailing dates, officials could give bonds and leave before the residencia was completed.[42] This was permitted only to men of good character, whose services had been uniformly satisfactory, and who were destined to some other post wherein their services were indispensable. The investigation was then conducted in the absence of the official concerned.[43] It was decreed by the cédula of December 30, 1776, that an annual deduction of one-fifth of the total salary of the governors and viceroys respectively should be made, until sufficient money had been taken out to cover the probable costs and liabilities of their residencias.[44] This was a special assessment, distinct from the media anata,[45] and the money deducted thereby was to be returned if nothing detrimental were proved in the residencia. The last year’s salaries of alcaldes mayores and corregidores were withheld, pending investigations of their official conduct and a rendering of accounts of collections made by them.[46] If an official were cleared of all guilt, the money which had been withheld was returned and the costs of residencia were defrayed by the royal treasury.[47] In case the official were found guilty of misconduct, he had to forfeit his deposits, back-salary, bonds, and frequently to pay a large fine in addition. The amount of the penalty, of course, depended on the extent of the guilt. It may be said that in the Philippines the royal treasury suffered no serious embarrassment through having to bear costs of residencia.
The judges of residencia who served as such in addition to their regular duties, received an additional compensation which varied according to the place where the residencia was held, its distance from the capital, and other circumstances.[48] This was modified by a reform of the nineteenth century which awarded extra pay only in the case the official were fined. This, of course, was intended to afford the examining judge a stimulating interest in the case. Still later the system of giving extra pay for residencias was abolished.[49]
A detailed survey of the governor’s residencia in the Philippines would illustrate the influence of the audiencia in such investigations. Unfortunately the story would be long and little space remains for such a purpose. During the first two centuries of Spanish rule in the Islands the residencias of the governors were especially stringent, many of these officials suffering deprivation of office, imprisonment, and exile. The families and dependents of some were reduced to the last extreme of poverty, while the victims themselves spent years in some distant province, unable to defend themselves from their enemies. Many victims of the residencia were purposely put aside in order that no appeal could be heard from them. One would occasionally find relief at last in a tardy pardon or in a modification of sentence, obtained through friends at home, when these could be reached, but more often death would intervene before the exercise of executive clemency or revision of sentence could be obtained.
The factors of petty spite, malice, and personal ambition entered to an extensive degree in the rendering of testimony at a residencia. A governor, recently arrived in the colony, would be full of zeal and ardor to inaugurate a successful administration, and make a good record for himself. The first duty that presented itself on his arrival was that of taking or supervising his predecessor’s residencia. Frequently, before arriving at Manila, the new governor would be in full possession of a complete record of the misdeeds of his predecessor, and the residencia of the latter was as good as taken.[50] Oidores, merchants, alcaldes, treasury officials, and churchmen, compelled to stand aside and see a governor take his choice out of the best things, leaving for them only the husks, were not slow in bringing charges at the official residencia.[51] A new governor, desirous of demonstrating his intention of starting an honest and vigorous administration, hearing nothing but evil of his predecessor, would naturally lend himself as an instrument to the malcontents. A fiscal, after spending six years in conflict with a governor, could be depended on to bring strenuous prosecution against him. A magistrate with enmity in his heart for the governor whose residencia he was to take, was no fit person to conduct an impartial investigation.
While as a rule the residencias of governors were severe, due largely to the presence of the audiencia, that of Dr. Sande, the first governor to submit to this investigation, illustrates the evils of the residencia as conducted before the establishment of the audiencia. His successor, Governor Ronquillo de Peñalosa, conducted Sande’s residencia and sentenced him to pay a heavy fine, but he appealed the case to the Audiencia of Mexico, by which tribunal, in the meantime, he had been commissioned oidor. We have noted in an earlier chapter Ronquillo’s comments on the abject state into which the administration of justice had fallen when a man could be promoted to a magistracy in a tribunal which had jurisdiction over his own case on appeal.[52] However, after the establishment of the audiencia, and until the close of the nineteenth century, the residencia went to the other extreme, and was, as a rule, exceedingly rigorous.