Only those persons domiciled in the Islands would be permitted to trade with them.
A sum of ₱1,000 was to be taken from the tributes paid into the Royal Treasury for the foundation of the Hospital for the Spaniards, and the annual sum of ₱600, appropriated by the Governor for its support, was confirmed. Moreover, the Royal Treasury of Mexico was to send clothing to the value of 400 ducats for the Hospital use.
The Hospital for the natives was to receive an annual donation of ₱600 for its support, and an immediate supply of clothing from Mexico to the value of ₱200.
Slaves held by the Spaniards were to be immediately set at liberty. No native was thenceforth to make slaves. All new-born natives were declared free. The bondage of all existing slaves from ten years of age was to cease on their attaining twenty years of age. Those above twenty years of age were to serve five years longer, and then become free. At any time, notwithstanding the foregoing conditions, they would be entitled to purchase their liberty, the price of which was to be determined by the Governor and the Bishop.[6]
There being no tithes payable to the Church by Spaniards or natives, the clergy were to receive for their maintenance the half-real above mentioned in lieu thereof, from the tribute paid by each native subjected to the Crown. When the Spaniards should have crops, they were to pay tithes to the clergy (diezmos prediales).
A grant was made of 12,000 ducats for the building and ornaments of the Cathedral of Manila, and an immediate advance of 2,000 ducats on account of this grant was made from the funds to be remitted from Mexico.
Forty Austin friars were to be sent at once to the Philippines, to be followed by missionaries from other corporations. The King allowed ₱500 to be paid against the ₱1,000 passage money for each priest, the balance to be defrayed out of the common funds of the clergy, derived from their share of the tribute.
Missionaries in great numbers had already flocked to the Philippines and roamed wherever they thought fit, without licence from the Bishop, whose authority they utterly repudiated.
Affirming that they had the direct consent of His Holiness the Pope, they menaced with excommunication whosoever attempted to impede them in their free peregrination. Five years after the foundation of Manila, the city and environs were infested with niggardly mendicant friars, whose slothful habits placed their supercilious countrymen in ridicule before the natives. They were tolerated but a short time in the Islands; not altogether because of the ruin they would have brought to European moral influence on the untutored tribes, but because the Bishop was highly jealous of all competition against the Augustine Order which he assisted. Consequent on the representations of Alonso Sánchez, His Majesty ordained that all priests who went to the Philippines were, in the first place, to resolve never to quit the Islands without the Bishopʼs sanction, which was to be conceded with great circumspection and only in extreme cases, whilst the Governor was instructed not to afford them means of exit on his sole authority.
Neither did the Bishop regard with satisfaction the presence of the Commissary of the Inquisition, whose secret investigations, shrouded with mystery, curtailed the liberty of the loftiest functionary, sacred or civil. At the instigation of Alonso Sánchez, the junta recommended the King to recall the Commissary and extinguish the office, but he refused to do so. In short, the chief aims of the Bishop were to enhance the power of the friars, raise the dignity of the Colonial mitre, and secure a religious monopoly for the Augustine Order.