The conviction that the government should be pre-eminently military was not held by governors alone. Fernando de los Ríos Coronel, procurator of the Philippines at the Court of Madrid in 1597, urged that the government should be of a military character and that the practice of sending soldiers to govern the Islands should be continued.[3] This opinion was also advanced by Fray Alonso Sánchez, procurator of the Islands at Madrid in 1589, and the emissary whose arguments were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the suppression of the audiencia.[4] Francisco Leandro de Viana, the most efficient fiscal that the Islands ever had, and afterwards councillor of the Indies, recognized the military attributes of the governor’s position. He urged a separation of the spheres of the governor and the audiencia, recommending that the former should attend solely to war and government, while the latter should confine itself to matters of justice.[5]
This opinion was shared by Juan José Delgado, the able Jesuit historian, who expressed the conviction that the “islands need disinterested military governors, not merchants; and men of resolution and character, not students, who are more fit to govern monasteries than communities of heroes.”[6] Delgado recommended that governors of the Philippines should be picked men, selected for their military qualities. The distance and isolation of the colony and its proximity to the great empires of China and Japan made defense the first requisite. Delgado believed that a soldier would be less amenable to bribes and that commercial ventures would be less attractive to him.[7] He recommended that governors should be absolute in affairs of government and war and that all departments and officials of the government should be subject to him.
While most of the independent commentators writing on the subject seem to have conceived of the duties of the governor as savoring more of war than of peace, we may note that Manuel Bernáldez Pizarro, for many years a resident and official in the Philippines, writing in 1827, urged that the governors there should be efficient administrators rather than soldiers. It must be remembered, however, that the political conditions in the Philippines during his period were widely different from those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the Islands were constantly exposed to the attack of outside enemies and liable to insurrections within. The chief problems of the nineteenth century were administrative, rather than military. He pointed out that governors had already exhibited too much of the militant spirit in dealing with the problems of government, “not heeding the opinions and customs of the country, but depending on the force of arms,” or their asesores.[8] This had the effect of causing dissensions between the governor and audiencia, and the resultant discord had furnished a very bad example for the natives and residents of the colony.
The characteristic tendency throughout the history, of the Islands to lay stress on the military side of the governor’s position was commented on by Montero y Vidal, the modern historian of the Philippines, in the following terms:
The authority of the governor-general is complete, and so great a number of attributes conferred on one functionary, incompetent, as a general rule, for everything outside of military affairs, is certainly prejudicial to the right exercise of his duty; ... since 1822 the government has always devolved upon an official; a general, and in the case of his death, a segundo cabo, and, in case of the death of the latter, a commandant of the naval station.[9]
The preservation of the peace and the maintenance of the defense of the Islands was the chief responsibility and the most important duty of the governor and captain-general. Although the audiencia was ordered to do all that it could to assist, nevertheless the tribunal was strictly forbidden to restrict or hinder the governor in the execution of his military duties.[10] The governor’s position as commander-in-chief of the king’s forces, and his pre-eminence in military affairs, were generally recognized.
Notwithstanding the fact that the early laws conferred exclusive military powers on the governor, a glance at three hundred years of Spanish colonial history will show that the audiencias participated in these matters in two different ways. In fact, an analysis of the military jurisdiction shows the presence and the exercise, in general, of two kinds of activity. These consisted, first, of a special judicial system for the trial of persons under military law and distinct from the civil jurisdiction, and second, of the control and disposition of the military forces of the Islands, and their utilization for defense. One, therefore, was judicial, the other was administrative, but both of these forces of activity were within the military sphere. The problem of this chapter, therefore, consists in determining the conditions, circumstances, and extent of the audiencia’s participation in military affairs, and of its relation to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor and captain-general.
As commander-in-chief, the governor was at the head of a special judicial system for the trial of soldiers under the military law. This judicial system was independent of the audiencia, and the latter body, during the greater part of the history of the Islands, was denied jurisdiction in these cases, even on appeal.[11] We have already noted, however, the tendency of the law to excuse these busy executives from direct participation in ordinary judicial activities. Notwithstanding the governor’s status in the above-mentioned particular, he seldom intervened personally in the trial of such cases. His position with regard to the military jurisdiction was similar to his relation with the audiencia, of which he was president, but over which he seldom presided.
The actual trial of the criminal cases of soldiers was conducted in first instance by military tribunals and magistrates. Most prominent among the latter were the castellán and the maestre de campo. The captains, themselves, had certain judicial authority within their companies.[12] Appeals were made from these military judges of first instance to the captain-general. If there had been notorious injustice or a grave infraction of the law in the trial of a case of first instance, it was the governor’s duty either to refer the case to some other magistrate than to the one who originally tried it, or to a special judicial tribunal. An oidor might be designated to serve in this tribunal. When the magistrates served in this capacity they were responsible entirely to the governor and were not identified with the audiencia. Oidores frequently objected to this service, but the governor was usually able to enforce these demands, which were in accordance with the laws and approved by the home government.
The captain-general exercised the pardoning power. Under some circumstances cases might be appealed to Spain, but in these suits, most of which involved personal crimes and misdemeanors, the decision of the captain-general or the local military tribunal was usually final, if for no other reason than the fact that the soldiers in Manila lacked the means to carry their cases further. Those cases which were appealed usually involved principles of law desirable to be tested by reference to a higher tribunal. The junta de guerra de Indias received all appeals from the military officials of the colonies and solved all questions of a judicial or administrative character that were carried to it.