[13] Vide speech of Gov.-General (then styled Civil Governor) Luke E. Wright on assuming office on February 1, 1904. Reported in the Manila Official Gazette, Vol. II., No. 5, dated February 3, 1904.
[14] This condition was termed “frailuno.” In its application to the European it simply denoted “partisan of the regular clergy.” Its popular signification when applied to the native was a total relinquishment of, or incapacity for, independent appreciation of the friarsʼ dicta in mundane matters.
[15] Since the Treaty of Paris (1898) the Spanish friars are foreigners in these Islands. The Philippine clergy oppose a foreign monopoly of their Church. They declare themselves competent to undertake the cure of souls, and claim the fulfilment of the Council of Trent decrees which prohibit the regular clergy to hold benefices, except on two conditions, viz.:—(1) as missionaries to non-Christians, (2) as temporary parish priests in christian communities where qualified secular clergy cannot be found to take their places. The crux of the whole question is the competency or incompetency of the Philippine clergy. The Aglipayans allege that Pope Leo XIII., in the last years of his pontificate, issued a bull declaring the Filipinos to be incompetent for the cure of souls. They strongly resent this. Whether the bull exists or not, the unfitness of the Philippine clergy to take the place of the regular clergy was suggested by the Holy See in 1902 (vide p. [599]).
The Council of Trent was the 18th oecumenical council of the Church, assembled at Trent, a town in the Austrian Tyrol, and sat, with certain interruptions, from December 13, 1545, until December 4, 1563. Nearly every point of doubt or dispute within the Catholic Church was discussed at this Council. Its decrees were confirmed and published by Pope Pius IV. in 1564 by papal decree, being a brief summary of the doctrines known as the Profession of the Tridentine Faith, commonly called also the Creed of Pius IV.
[16] Monsignor Ambrogio Agius, born on September 17, 1856, of a distinguished Maltese family, entered on his novitiate at the Benedictine Monastery of Ramsgate, England, on September 8, 1871. Having finished his studies of philosophy and theology in Rome, he was ordained as priest on October 16, 1881, in the Cathedral of Santo Scolastico at Subiaco. He then returned to England, but in 1895 he was called to Rome, where for nine years he held several ecclesiastical offices. His ability was observed by Pope Leo XIII., and by his successor Pius X., who raised Ambrogio Agius to the dignity of titular Archbishop of Palmyra and appointed him Apostolic Delegate to the Philippine Islands in the year 1904, in succession to the late Monsignor Giovanni Guidi.
[17] The Census Report of 1903 shows the Civilized male population twenty-one years of age and over to be as follows: of Superior Education 50,140, Literate 489,609, and Illiterate 1,137,776.
[18] Vide Official Gazette, Vol. II., No. 4, dated January 27, 1904.
[19] Under the Act of Congress which authorized the taking of the census, dated July 1, 1902. it is provided (Section (6) that a Philippine Assembly shall be created two years after the publication of the Census Report. This publication, complete in four volumes, having been issued on March 27, 1905, the following day the Gov.-General at Manila notified by proclamation that “in case a condition of general and complete peace, with recognition of the authority of the United States, shall have continued in the territory of these Islands, not inhabited by Moros or non-christian tribes, and such facts shall have been certified to the President by the Philippine Commission, the President, upon being satisfied thereof, shall direct the Philippine Commission to call, and the Commission shall call, a general election for the choice of delegates to a popular assembly of the people of the said territory in the Philippine Islands, which shall be known as the Philippine Assembly, and which provides also that after the said Assembly shall have been convened and organized, all the legislative power heretofore conferred on the Philippine Commission in that part of these Islands not inhabited by Moros or other non-christian tribes shall be vested in a Legislature consisting of two Houses—the Philippine Commission and the Philippine Assembly. In witness whereof (etc., etc.) this 28th day of March, 1905.”
[20] At Báguio, in the mountain region of the Benguet district, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, the Insular Government has established a health-resort for the recreation of the members of the Civil Commission. The air is pure, and the temperature so low (max. 78°, min. 46° Fahr.) that pine-forests exist in the neighbourhood, and potatoes (which are well known all over the Islands for many years past) are cultivated there. The distance from Manila to Báguio, in a straight line, would be about 130 miles. By this route—that is to say, by railway to Dagúpan, 120 miles, and then by the 55-mile road (opened in the spring of 1905)—the travelling distance is 175 miles. The new road runs through a country half uninhabited, and leads to (commercially) nowhere. The amount originally appropriated for the making of this 55-mile road was $75,000 gold (Philippine Commission Act No. 61). Up to January, 1905, $2,400,000 gold had been expended on its construction. It is curious to note that this sum includes $366,260 gold taken from the Congressional Relief Fund (vide p. [621]). A further appropriation of $17,500 gold has been made for its improvement, with the prospect of large sums being yet needed for this undertaking, which is of no benefit whatever to the Filipinos. They need no sanatorium, and Europeans have lived in the Islands, up to 30 years, without one. The word Báguio in Tagálog signifies Hurricane.
[21] Vide “Population of the Philippines,” Bulletin 1, published by the Department of Commerce and Labour. Bureau of the Census, 1904, Washington. Census taken in 1903 under the direction of General J. P. Sanger, U.S. Army.