The Subanos appear to be much more refractory to civilisation and Christianity than the Montéses, the Manobos or the Mandayas. This no doubt comes from the strong influence that vile nests of pirates and slave-traders around Lake Lanao has for centuries exercised over them, but in time the Trocha, if kept as it should be, in the interests of civilisation, will destroy that.
The Jesuit missionaries were actively at work round about the Bay of Dapitan in the extreme north of the Subano territory, and to some extent round about Zamboanga in the extreme south, until the war between Spain and America broke out.
In the Dapitan district there were at the end of 1896 nearly 15,000 Christians residing in the towns and villages under the spiritual, and temporal guidance of the Jesuits. During that year 208 heathen were baptized in the Dapitan district, but only 21 in the Zamboanga district.
It is safe to assume that in the Dapitan district alone there are 10,000 Christian Subanos.
The number of heathen Subanos, amongst whom there are a few semi-Mahometans, may be about 90,000. From these figures it is quite evident that the missionary enterprise should be extended, but in order to do this the insolence of the Moros must be chastised.
Chapter XXXVIII.
The Moros, or Mahometan Malays (18 to 23).
These terrible pirates who have for centuries laid waste the coasts of the Philippines and the adjacent islands, with fire and sword, carrying off tens of thousands of Christians or heathen into slavery, have only within the last few years had their power definitely broken by the naval and military forces of Spain and by the labours of the Jesuit missionaries, amongst the heathen tribes of the island.
It is scarcely half a century since they annually attacked the Visayas Islands and even Southern Luzon, and they have been, up to quite lately, the great obstacle to the civilisation of the Southern Philippines. In Culion, Cuyos and other islands the churches are built within a stone fort, in which the population took refuge when the Moros appeared. The old Spanish sailing men-of-war could not cope with these sea rovers, who in their light prahus, salisipanes, or vintas, kept in shallow water or amongst reefs where these vessels could not reach them. Of course, if the pirates were surprised when crossing open water, they ran great risks, since their artillery was always very deficient, but they sailed in great numbers, and if it fell calm they would cluster round a solitary man-of-war and take her by boarding.