It must have been shortly after the handbooks of Plasencia received the seal of ecclesiastical approval that Salazar wrote the King speaking of the action taken, and got back in answer the cedula, quoted before, giving the Bishop and Audiencia the right of censorship over such works. The question of chronological precedence[80] between Quiñones and Plasencia is not important, for the specific approval of Plasencia’s texts by the Synod, attended by Quiñones himself, shows that Plasencia’s books were accepted, and in conformity with the ruling of the Synod would have been the only texts allowed to be used generally in the Philippines.
Another reference to writers in the native tongues in an anonymous manuscript of 1649 introduces the names of other linguists:
“The first missionaries left many writings in the Tagalog and Bicol languages, the best of which are those left by Fathers Fray Juan de Oliver, Fray Juan de Plasencia, Fray Miguel de Talavera, Fray Diego de la Asuncion, and Fray Gerónimo Monte. Mention is here made of the above fathers because they were the first masters of the Tagalog language, and since their writings are so common and so well received by all the orders. They have not been printed, because they are voluminous, and there are no arrangements in this kingdom for printing so much.”[81]
Miguel de Talavera we have spoken of before. That he helped Plasencia in the compilation of his earliest works in Tagalog is clear, and to him in part must be attributed the miracle of the production by Plasencia of the texts “in so short a time and with so few years in the country.” Martínez says specifically that Talavera “was the first interpreter among our priests, and greatly helped Fr. Juan de Plasencia in the composition of the Arte y Vocabulario.”[82] Juan de Oliver was in somewhat the same relationship to Plasencia, but instead of helping with the initial attempts, he carried on from where Plasencia left off. Oliver came to the Philippines on the same expedition which brought Bishop Salazar in 1581. According to Huerta[83] he worked in various Tagalog villages, and mastered the Tagalog and Bicol languages, in which he wrote twenty-two works, which Huerta lists. Of these three are of particular interest to us. The first entry says that he “corrected the Tagalog grammar written by Fr. Juan de Plasencia, and added the adverbs and particles;”[84] the second that “he perfected and augmented the Spanish-Tagalog dictionary, written by the said Fr. Juan de Plasencia;” and the sixteenth lists a Catecismo de doctrina Cristiana esplicado.
Several authors, attempting to establish the priority of Quiñones’ dictionary, question the existence of one by Plasencia at the Synod of 1582 in the face of his own statement in 1585 that he “was then making a dictionary.”[85] To us there seems to be no inconsistency, if Plasencia in 1585 was referring to a revision, unquestionably made with his knowledge and help, by Juan de Oliver. In short, it is reasonable to assume that Plasencia, burdened with administrative duties from 1583 to 1586, during which time he was custodian of his order, secured the aid of Oliver in reediting and continuing his linguistic studies. Plasencia died in 1590.
The other two Franciscans listed by the anonymous historian of 1649 are elsewhere recorded as having written various works in Tagalog. To both Diego de la Asuncion[86] and Gerónimo Montes y Escamillo[87] were attributed grammars and dictionaries, and the latter also wrote a Devotional tagalog, said to have been printed at Manila in 1610. In speaking of these early linguistic texts, it is not necessary to believe that each was a completely original work, but rather that they were based upon a recognized model, which was at first the Talavera-Plasencia-Oliver text, and that the individual missionaries used their experience in the field to produce, as it were, new editions. That this was the case is borne out by the notes of Pablo Rojo to his bibliography of Plasencia where speaking of the grammar and dictionary he says that “perfected by other missionaries, they have been the base for such grammars and dictionaries of Tagalog as have been written, but in the form in which they came from the hands of their author, they have not come down to us.”[88] More important still is Rojo’s statement[89] that he found a portion of Plasencia’s Doctrina which had been believed lost, and from which he quotes the Pater Noster. Since he does not say where the manuscript was or how it was known to be Plasencia’s text, we cannot put too much reliance on the statement, but the text as there printed, while similar to that of the present Doctrina, is not identical.
The Jesuits
Before passing on to the Dominicans we shall mention briefly the linguists of the Society of Jesus. In the early days there were not many Jesuits in the Philippines. However, there were some linguists among them, chiefly of the Visayan tongue, in which they are said to have printed a Doctrina[90] as early as 1610. Limiting ourselves to a note of those who knew Chinese and Tagalog, we find that the first mentioned by Chirino as an outstanding master of one of these was Francisco Almerique, who arrived with Santiago de Vera in 1583. Shortly thereafter he “began the study of the Chinese language in his zeal to aid in the conversion of the many Chinese who came to Manila and whom we in the Philippines call Sangleys.”[91] And Colin says “his principal occupation was with the Tagalog Indians, being the first of the Company to learn their language.”[92] Nothing further is said of his accomplishments in these languages, but his knowledge would have been available in 1593, for he was then still active in the islands.
Chirino himself landed at Manila in 1590 shortly after Dasmariñas, and went almost immediately to Taytay where he learned Tagalog and was joined in 1592 by Martin Henriquez. At the time Juan de Oliver was preaching in that district, and it is exceedingly probable that he helped the newcomers with the language, for Chirino speaks of him in terms of highest praise. Henriquez “learned the language in three months and in six wrote a catechism in it, a confessionary, and a book of sermons for all the gospels of the year in the said idiom,”[93] but he died on February 3, 1593 at Taytay. How thoroughly Chirino himself had grasped the fundamentals of Tagalog is evident from his three chapters[94] on the language and letters of the natives in which he prints the Ave Maria in Tagalog and reproduces the Tagalog alphabet—its first appearance in a European publication. But Chirino, who remained in the provinces until 1595, would have mentioned his participation and that of Henriquez in the Doctrina of 1593, so we record them as possible but not probable consultants.