An oidor in the Philippines served as judge of medias anatas.[11] These taxes were levied upon the salaries of all officials of royal appointment, except ecclesiastics, these exactions varying in amount from one-half the first year’s income to one-tenth of the gross salary of each official. The cédula of June 2, 1632,[12] ordered the judge-commissioner of medias anatas to surrender the money which he had collected to the treasury officials who in turn were to transmit it to Spain.[13] More definite information as to the nature of the duties of the judge-commissioner of these funds may be gathered from the cédula of December 14, 1776, by which Oidor Félix Díaz Quejada y Obrero was appointed as commissioner of medias anatas in the Philippines. This magistrate was authorized to retain four per cent of all that he collected. This percentage, the cédula stated, was the same as was paid to the commissioner of medias anatas of New Spain. The cédula ordered Quejada to collect this tax from all royal appointees, but not from governors of towns or Indian caciques who were elected yearly, and who, of course, were not royal appointees. Appeals from judgments of the commissioner of medias anatas were to be entertained in the Council of the Indies only, and not in the audiencia.[14]
It has been pointed out already in this chapter that the effect of the reforms of the intendancy was to limit the jurisdiction of the oidores over special commissions. This is especially true of those relating to finance. An illustration of this is shown in the disputes which occurred between the oidores and the governor, over the conservatorships of betel,[15] wine, tobacco, playing-cards, and cockpits. When these sources of income developed in the latter part of the seventeenth century, their supervision, as usual, had been conferred on oidores with title of asesores or jueces-conservadores (judge conservators).[16] This was done in disregard of the laws of the Indies, wherein was expressed the desirability of conferring these assessorships, if possible, on properly qualified officials, other than oidores. The magistrate holding a commission was to attend to the legal duties and adjudicate all suits in connection therewith. The latter regulation was made in order that when the cases were brought to trial the magistrate might not be incapacitated by having rendered decisions in them ahead. The law continued in the following strain:
when a case so urgent and extraordinary offers itself that an oidor must be appointed, warning is hereby given that ... the same magistrate who tried the case originally may not be judge.[17]
This law conceded that oidores might serve when other magistrates were not available.
Governor Marquina, superintendente subdelegado de real hacienda from 1789 to 1793, refused to permit oidores to serve as asesores of the monopolies of betel, wine, and tobacco. These magistrates claimed, however, that they were entitled to the appointments, since they had occupied these positions before July 26, 1784, the date of the creation of the intendancy in the Philippines. They conceded that they had been relieved of jurisdiction over these rents on that date, and that the authority formerly exercised by them had been assumed by the intendant.[18] By the cédula of November 23, 1787, however, the intendancy had been abolished and the government restored to “the state and condition which had previously existed.”[19] This would mean that the oidores should again hold these asesorías, and on the basis of this reasoning they demanded that the governor should return them.
The oidores did not tamely submit to a deprivation of their posts as asesores on the occasion of the establishment of the intendancy. They complained to the king, alleging that these appointments belonged to them by their own right. The king inquired of Governor Basco y Vargas why the oidores had not been designated for these duties. The governor replied that the supervision of the rents had been assumed by the intendant, but that their direction belonged at that time to the governor and superintendent, by virtue of the cédula of November 23, 1787.[20] He stated that the oidores had no right of their own to these asesorías, since the faculty of appointing asesores had been conferred on the governor (or viceroy) by the laws of the Indies,[21] and in times past governors had appointed lawyers who were not oidores. There was therefore no obligation on the part of the governor to give these places to oidores; indeed, the laws of the Indies had emphasized the undesirability of doing so.[22]
Basco y Vargas, in pursuance of this conception of his rights and duties, combined all of these asesorías under the direction of one office, placing them under the orders of his own asesor, leaving oidores in charge of each minor asesoría, except that of tobacco, which was placed under the immediate direction of the governor’s asesor. The king approved this action, giving the new official a new title, that of asesor de todo lo directivo y lo económico de la superintendencia subdelegada de la real hacienda de Filipinas.[23] The local authority appointed Magistrate Castillo y Negrete to this new position at once, but the king, on the ground that the law[24] forbade an oidor to hold such an office, disapproved of the appointment and gave the place to Rufino de Rivera, who had formerly been auditor de guerra and asesor de gobierno.
As soon as Governor Marquina assumed office, he relieved the magistrates of the audiencia of all share in the administration of these monopolies, combining all these branches of real hacienda under the asesor above mentioned. On August 3, 1791, the audiencia protested against the acts of the governor, basing its claims to a continuance of authority on the cédula of March 20, 1790, by which the king had authorized the oidores to administer all the monopolies except tobacco.
On August 16, 1791, Governor Marquina answered the complaint of the audiencia in a memorial of his own, in which he set forth his position in summarized form, giving a history of the entire contention, and defining his position with precision and clarity.[25] He claimed that the cédulas which had been issued up to that time had recognized the right of the governor to dispose of these asesorías, which did not and never had belonged to the oidores by their own right. As superintendent of real hacienda, he (the governor) was judge-conservator of all the asesorías, and by cédula of March 20, 1790, he had been authorized to control them through his asesor. The latter official had also been ordered to administer the rent of tobacco directly as the agent of the governor and to supervise the others in the governor’s name. The oidores had been forbidden to hold these positions, except under exceptional circumstances, which, in Marquina’s judgment, did not exist at this time,[26] since there was present in the colony a special asesor whose duty it was to supervise these monopolies. The audiencia would have to try certain cases on appeal as a judicial body, and oidores who had already rendered decisions as judge-conservators could not justly render decisions when the same cases were appealed. He declared that he had the approval of the king in his contention, and was therefore confident of his position.
The governor’s will prevailed, and the magistrates were deprived of the commissions which they had formerly held; these were given over to regular officials of real hacienda. Contentious cases, however, that did not pertain exclusively to finance were tried on appeal in the audiencia and that body exercised regular, but not special, jurisdiction in them thereafter.