The official title of the governor of the Philippines up to 1861 was governor, captain-general, and president of the royal audiencia.[1] a combination of three important functions. In his capacity as governor, he was chief executive of the civil government, with authority over all administrative departments, including finance, and over ecclesiastical affairs. As captain-general, the governor was commander-in-chief of the military forces, with the special duty of providing for the defense of the Islands. As president of the audiencia, the governor retained his authority as executive while entering the field of the judiciary. Though he could not act as judge, himself, nevertheless we have seen in former chapters that he exercised extensive authority over the tribunal, its procedure, and its magistrates.
It will accordingly be our aim in this chapter to discuss the general relations of the audiencia and the governor. These include administrative, financial, and ecclesiastical functions, and those involving the government of the provinces. To these will be added such further observations as remain to be made concerning the judicial relations of the governor and audiencia, leaving apart for discussion in another chapter as an integral subject, the military jurisdiction and the respective participation of the audiencia and the governor in the matter of defense.
Generally speaking, the governor of the Philippines occupied the same relative position, within and without the colony, as did the viceroy in New Spain, and during the greater part of the history of the Islands he was independent of the government of New Spain and was responsible to the Spanish court directly, in the same manner as the viceroy.[2] The independence of the Philippine government may be said to have been practically complete, with such exceptions as will be mentioned in a subsequent chapter, treating of the ad interim rule, after the re-establishment of the audiencia in 1598. The governor was the chief administrative official of the colony, and the provincial governments derived their authority from him; he was the royal vice-patron, and in this capacity he bore the same relation to the church in the colony as the king did to the church in Spain. Likewise as the king was the theoretical head of the state, and was limited and assisted in the exercise of his authority over the empire by the Council of the Indies, so the governor and captain general of the Philippines (and the viceroy in New Spain and Perú) was the head of the colony, and was limited by the audiencia. The audiencias of all the colonies were equally dependent on the Council of the Indies.
Professor Bourne very aptly characterizes the office of governor of the Philippines and its relations to the audiencia. He writes:
The Philippine Islands were constituted a kingdom and placed under the charge of a governor and captain general, whose powers were truly royal and limited only by the check imposed by the Supreme Court (the Audiencia) and by the ordeal of the residencia at the expiration of his term of office. Among his extensive prerogatives was his appointing power which embraced all branches of the civil service in the islands. He also was ex officio the President of the Audiencia. His salary was $8000 a year, but his income might be largely augmented by gifts or bribes. The limitations upon the power of the Governor imposed by the Audiencia, in the opinion of the French astronomer Le Gentil, were the only safeguard against an arbitrary despotism, yet Zúñiga, a generation later pronounced its efforts in this direction generally ineffectual.[3]
Juan José Delgado, who gives us perhaps the most comprehensive and realistic survey of the Philippines of any of the ecclesiastical historians of those Islands, describes the nature of the office of governor as follows:
The governors of these Islands have absolute authority to provide and to attend to all that pertains to the royal estate, government, war; they have consultations in different matters with the oidores of the royal audiencia; they try in the first instance the criminal causes of the soldiers, and they appoint alcaldes, corregidores, deputy and chief justices of all the Islands for the exercise of government, justice, war, ... and besides many other preëminences conceded by royal decrees to the presidency of the royal audiencia and chancery.[4]
The governors of these Islands [he wrote] are almost absolute, and are like private masters of them. They exercise supreme authority, by reason of their charge, for receiving and sending embassies to the neighboring kings and tyrants, ... they can make peace, make and declare war, and take vengeance on those who insult us, without awaiting any resolution from the Court for it. Therefore many kings have rendered vassalage and paid tribute to the governors, have recognized them as their superiors, have respected and feared their arms, have solicited their friendship, and have tried to procure friendly relations and commerce with them; and those who have broken their word with them have been punished.[5]
The governor of the Philippines, like the viceroy of New Spain, was the administrative head of the colony, and as such exercised supervision over all the departments of the government, likewise over ecclesiastical affairs. He was directed to devote himself to the service of God, and to labor for the welfare of the souls of the natives and inhabitants of the provinces, governing them in peace and quietude, endeavoring to bring about their spiritual and moral uplift and their numerical increase. The governors (or viceroys) were instructed by the laws of the Indies
to provide all things which are convenient for the administration and execution of justice, ... to maintain the government and defense of their districts, exercising very special care for the good treatment, conservation and augmentation of the Indians, and especially the collection, administration, account and care of the royal exchequer.