A Visit to the Philippine Islands

by John Bowring

A strange event took place in 1630. The holy sacrament had been stolen in a glass vase, from the cathedral. A general supplication (rogativa) was ordered; the archbishop issued from his palace barefooted, his head covered with ashes, and a rope round his neck, wandering about to discover where the vase was concealed. All attempts having failed, so heavy were the penitences, and so intolerable the grief of the holy man, that he sank under the calamity, and a fierce contest between the ecclesiastical and civil functionaries was the consequence of his death.

In 1635 there was a large arrival of rich converted Japanese, who fled from the fierce persecutions to which the Christians had been subjected in Japan; but a great many Catholic missionaries hastened to that country, in order to be honoured with the crown of martyrdom. Another remarkable ecclesiastical quarrel took place at this time. A commissary, lately arrived from Europe, ordered that all the friars with beards should be charged with the missions to China and Japan; and all the shorn friars should remain in the Philippines. The archbishop opposed this, as the Pope’s bulls had no regulations about beards. Fierce debates were also excited by the exercise of the right of asylum to criminals, having committed offences, either against the military or the civil authority. The archbishop excommunicated—the commandant of artillery rebelled. The archbishop fined him—the vicar apostolic confirmed the sentence. The Audiencia annulled the proceedings—the Bishop of Camarines was called on as the arbiter, and absolved the commandant. Appeals followed, and one of the parties was accused of slandering the Most Holy Father. The Jesuits took part against the archbishop, who called all the monks together, and they fined the Jesuits 4,000 dollars. The governor defended the Jesuits, and required the revocation of the sentence in six hours. The quarrel did not end here: but there was a final compromise, each party making some concessions to the other.

The disasters which followed the insurrection of Eng Kang did not prevent the influx of Chinese into the islands, and especially into the province of Laguna, where another outbreak, in which it is said 30,000 Chinese took part, occurred in 1639. They divided themselves into guerrillas, who devastated the country; but were subdued in the following year, seven thousand having surrendered at discretion. Spanish historians say that the hatred of the Indians to the Chinese awaked them from their habitual apathy, and that in the destruction of the intruders they exhibited infinite zeal and activity.

In the struggles between the natives and the Spaniards, even the missionaries were not always safe, and the Spaniards were often betrayed by those in whom they placed the greatest confidence. The heavy exactions and gabelles inflicted on the Indians under Fajardo led to a rising in Palopag, when the Jesuit curate was killed and the convent and church sacked. The movement spread through several of the islands, and many of the prisoners were delivered in Caraga to the keeping of an Indian, called Dabao, who so well fulfilled his mission, that when the governor came to the fortress, to claim the captives, Dabao seized and beheaded his Excellency, and, with the aid of the prisoners, destroyed most of the Spaniards in the neighbourhood, including the priests; so that only six, among whom was an Augustine barefooted friar, escaped, and fled to the capital. Reinforcements having arrived from Manila, the Indians surrendered, being promised a general pardon. “The promise,” says the Spanish historian, “was not kept; but the leaders of the insurrection were hanged, and multitudes of the Indians sent to prison.” The governor-general “did not approve of this violation of a promise made in the king’s name,” but ordered the punishment of the Spanish chiefs, and the release of such natives as remained in prison.

In 1645, for two months there was a succession of fearful earthquakes. In Cagayan a mountain was overturned, and a whole town engulfed at its foot. Torrents of water and mud burst forth in many places. All the public buildings in the capital were destroyed, except the convent and the church of the Augustines, and that of the Jesuits. Six hundred persons were buried in Manila under the ruins of their houses, and 3,000 altogether are said to have lost their lives.

De Lara was distinguished for his religious sentiments. On his arrival in 1653 he refused to land till the archbishop had preceded him and consecrated the ground on which he was to tread. He celebrated a jubilee under the authority of the Pope, by which the country was to be purified from “the crimes, censures, and excommunications” with which, for so many years, it had been afflicted. The archbishop, from an elevated platform in Manila, blessed the islands and their inhabitants in the presence of an immense concourse of people. Reconciliations, confessions, restitutions followed these “days of sanctity;” but the benedictions seem to have produced little benefit, as they were followed by earthquakes, tempests, insurrections, unpunished piracies, and, in the words of a Spanish writer, “a web of anxieties and calamities.” Missionaries were sent to convert the Mahomedans, but they were put to death, and many professed converts turned traitors. Kung Sing, the piratical chief, who had conquered Formosa, and who had 1,000 junks and 100,000 men under his orders, had sent an envoy to Manila demanding the subjection of the islands to his authority or threatening immediate invasion. The threat created a general alarm: the Chinese were all ordered to quit the country; they revolted, and almost all were murdered. “It is wonderful,” says De Mas, “that any Chinamen should have come to the Philippines after the repeated slaughters” of their countrymen at different periods, though it is certain they have often brought down the thunderbolt on their own heads. De Lara, having been accused of corruption, was fined 60,000 dollars, pardoned, and returned to Spain, where he became an ecclesiastic, and died in Malaga, his native city.

The “religiosity,” to use a Spanish word, of De Lara was followed by a very different temper in his successor, Salcedo, a Belgian by birth, nominated in 1663. He quarrelled with the priests, fined and condemned to banishment the archbishop, kept him standing while waiting for an audience, insulted him when he had obtained it; and on the death of the archbishop a few months afterwards, there were royal fiestas, while the services De Profundis, in honour of the dead, were prohibited as incompatible with the civil festivities. The Inquisition interfered in the progress of time, and its agents, assisted by an old woman servant, who held the keys, entered the palace, found the Governor asleep, put irons upon him, and carried him a prisoner to the Augustine convent. They next shipped him off to be tried by the Holy Office in Mexico, but he died on his way thither. The King of Spain cancelled and condemned the proceedings, confiscated the property of those who had been concerned in them, and directed all that had been seized belonging to Salcedo to be restored to his heirs.

Manuel de Leon, in 1669, obtained great reputation among the ecclesiastics. He governed for eight years and left all his property to obras pias. His predecessor, Manuel de la Peña Bonifaz (nominated provisionally), had refused to surrender his authority. He was declared an intruder, his goods were confiscated, and his arrest was ordered, but he sought refuge in the convent of the Recoletos, where he died. A quarrel took place between the competitors for the provisional government—the one appointed enjoyed his authority only for six months. He was, on his death, succeeded by his competitor, who was displaced by Juan de Vargas Hurtado in 1678. Great misunderstandings between the clergy and the civilians took place about this time. The governor was excommunicated, having been ordered on every holiday to appear in the cathedral and in the churches of Parcan and Binondo, barefooted and with a rope round his neck. Refusing to submit to such a degradation, he lived a solitary life, excluded from all intercourse, on the banks of the river, until he obtained permission to embark for New Spain; he died broken-hearted on the voyage.

It must be remembered, in looking over the ancient records of the Philippines, that the sole historians are the monks, and that their applause or condemnation can hardly be deemed a disinterested or equitable judgment. Hurtado is accused by them of many acts of despotism: they say that, in order to accomplish his objects, he menaced the friars with starvation, and by guards, prevented food reaching the convents; that he interfered with the election of ecclesiastics, persecuted and ordered the imprisonment of Bonifaz, his immediate predecessor (provisionally appointed), who fled to a convent of Recoletos (barefooted Augustines), and was protected by them. The Jesuits denied his claim to protection, but during the controversy Bonifaz died, and the records remain to exhibit another specimen of the bitterness of the odium theologicum and of the unity and harmony of which the Church of Rome sometimes boasts as the results of her infallibility. The archbishop was at this time quarrelling with the civil tribunals, to which he addressed his mandamus, and answered their recalcitrancy by reminding them that all secular authority was subordinate to ecclesiastical. The archbishop was placed under arrest and ordered to be banished by the Audiencia. He was conveyed by force in his pontifical robes to the vessel which transported him to Pangasinan. The Dominicans, to whose order the archbishop belonged, launched their excommunications and censures, and troops were sent to the convent to prevent the ringing of bells and the alarm and gathering of the people. The provincial, who had taken the active part in resistance, was, with other friars, ordered to be banished to Spain. When about to be removed, the dean commanded the soldiers present to kiss the provincial’s feet and do him all honour while he poured out his benedictions on the recalcitrant friars. In the midst of all this confusion a new governor (Curuzcalegui) arrived, in 1684, who took part with the clergy, and declared himself in favour of the banished archbishop, and condemned his judges to banishment. One of them fled to the Jesuit’s College, a sanctuary, but was seized by the troops. This by no means settled the quarrel, the following out of which is too complicated and too uninteresting to invite further scrutiny here.

In 1687 the King of Spain sent out a commissioner to inquire into the troubles that reigned in the Philippines. The Pope had taken up the cause of the more violent of the clergy, and Pardo (the archbishop), thus encouraged in his intemperance, declared the churches of the Jesuits desecrated in which the bodies of the civilians had been buried, who had adjudicated against the monks. Their remains were disinterred, but most of the judges who had defended the rights of the State against the ecclesiastical invasions were dead before the commissioner arrived; and, happily for the public peace, the turbulent prelate himself died in 1689. Curuzcalegui also died in 1689. After a short provisional interregnum (during which Valenzuela, the Spanish minister, who had been banished to the Philippines by Charles II., on his return homeward, was killed by the kick of a horse in Mexico), Fausto Cruzat y Gongora, was in 1690 invested with the government. His rule is most remarkable for its financial prosperity. It lasted for eleven years, for his successor, Domingo de Zubalburo, though nominated in 1694, did not arrive till 1701. He improved the harbour, but was dismissed by the King of Spain in consequence of his having admitted a Papal Legate à latere without requiring the presentation of his credentials. The Audiencia demanded them, and the Legate replied he was surprised at their venturing to question his powers. He frightened the people by this assumption, and proceeded to found a college in the name of St. Clement. The king was so exasperated that he ordered the college to be demolished, fined the Oidores (judges) a thousand dollars, and removed the dean from his office. Martin de Ursua y Arrimendi arrived in 1709, and died much regretted in 1715; he checked the influx of the Chinese, and thus conciliated popular prejudices. The interim governor, Jose Torralba, was accused of peculation to the amount of 700,000 dollars. He was called on by royal order to reimburse and find security for 40,000 dollars; but failing was sent to prison in fetters. He was ordered afterwards to be sent to Spain, but agreed to pay 120,000 dollars. He had not the money, and died a beggar. Fernando Bustillo (Bustamente) landed in 1717. He spent large sums in useless embassies, and lived ostentatiously and expensively. He set about financial reforms, and imprisoned many persons indebted to the State. He seized some of the principal inhabitants of the capital, menaced the judges, who fled to the convents for protection. The governor took Torralba into favour, releasing him from prison, and using him to undermine the authority of the Audiencia, by investing him with its powers. He ordered that on the discharge of a piece of artillery, all the Spaniards should repair to the palace: he arrested the archbishop, the chapter of the cathedral, several prelates and ecclesiastics, when a tumult followed; crowds rushed to the palace; they killed the governor and his son, who had hurried thither to defend his father. Francisco de la Cuesta was called upon to take charge of the government. The remaining children of Bustillo were sent to Mexico, and the Audiencia made a report of what had taken place to the king, who appointed Toribio José Cosio y Campo, and directed the punishment of those who had caused the former governor’s death; but under the influence of a Franciscan monk, Cosio was induced to consent to various delays, so that nothing was done in the matter, and the government in 1729 was transferred to Fernando Valdes y Tamon, who reformed the military exercises, sent an expedition to conquer the island of Palaos, failed in the attempt, and was succeeded by a Fleming, Gaspar de la Torre, in 1739. He dealt so severely with the fiscal Arroyo as to cause his death. He was disliked, became morose and solitary, and died in 1745. The bishop elect of Ilocos, father John Arrechedera, was the next governor, and the Sultan of Jolo, who desired to be baptized, visited him in Manila. The archbishop, to whom the matter was referred, declared that the Sultan had been received into the bosom of the Church by the Dominican friars of Panogui. The Marquis of Obando took possession of the government in 1750. The archbishop, whom he displaced, had received orders from the Spanish Cabinet to expel the Chinese from the islands; but whether from the honest conviction that the execution of the order would be pernicious to the permanent interests of the Philippines—in which judgment he was perfectly right—or (as the natives avow) from an unwarrantable affection for the Chinese, he, on various pretexts, delayed the publication of the royal mandate. Obando involved himself in quarrels with the Mussulman inhabitants of Mindanao, for which he had made no adequate preparation. He determined to restore the Sultan of Jolo, but on reaching Zamboanga he proceeded against the Sultan for unfaithfulness (infidencia), sent him to Manila, and caused him to be put into prison. The Mahomedans revolted. Obando desired to take the command against them. The Audiencia objected to the exposure of the person of the governor. The expedition failed, and disorders increased. He left the government in a most unsatisfactory state, and died on his way homewards. Pedro Manuel de Arandia assumed the government in 1754. He had some successes against the Mahomedans (or Moors, as they are generally called by Spanish writers). He intended to restore the Sultan of Jolo, but he involved himself in quarrels with the clergy, and his proceedings were disapproved by the Spanish Court. His unpopularity led to a fixed melancholy, under whose influences he died in 1759. Though he left his property for charitable purposes, the fact of its amounting to 250,000 dollars is urged as evidence of the corrupt character of his administration. The Bishop of Zebu, followed by the Archbishop of Manila, Manuel Royo, held the government provisionally on the death of Arandia. It was Royo who surrendered Manila, and transferred the island to the British in 1762.[1] He was made a prisoner, and died in prison in 1764, of grief and shame it was said. Simon de Anda y Salazar, one of the judges of the Royal Audiencia, was charged with the government during the possession of the capital by the English, and established his authority in Pampanga, where he maintained himself till the arrival of Francisco de la Torre, who was provisionally appointed by the Crown, and who, through Anda, received back Manila from the British. José Raon took possession of the government in 1766.