554. Thus erected, and in accordance with its erection, the Santa Misericordia remained with the temporal management, and our province with the spiritual management, of the hospital, which from that time began to be called the Misericordia [i.e., “House of Mercy”] of the Franciscan fathers—which before had been cared for by the venerable Leon and our venerable Fray Juan Clemente; and the erection of the said hospital in proper shape was considered.
555. They built a church with the title of “Presentacion de Nuestra Señora” [i.e., “Presentation of our Lady”], and a house and seminary with that of Santa Isabel, in order to rear Spanish orphan girls with thorough instruction in Christian doctrine and with good morals. It had a rectoress to care for and govern it, and a portress. Thence the girls go out with dowries sufficient for the estate [of marriage] to which they naturally tend, for which purpose the holy Misericordia appropriates sixteen thousand pesos. The girls who study there, who all the time are supported with whatever is necessary, number about sixty, besides some pupils, six slave girls, and other servants. For their expenses and those of their chaplains ten thousand seven hundred pesos are appropriated. It is a seminary of so great reputation and honor that, although it has been used from its beginning as a refuge for girls—the daughters of poor Spaniards, whom the brothers obtain from various houses and from Santa Potenciana—the best citizens of the community do not hesitate today to send their daughters there. Thence they go out to assume the state of matrimony, or as nuns of St. Clare. Their church is very capacious, of beautiful architecture, and very richly adorned. It was used as the cathedral (as above stated) until the year 1662, when the cabildo took possession of its new church.
556. Not only does this brotherhood have in charge today the support of this girls’ seminary, and of the hospital of the Misericordia (although the latter is at present under the charge of the hospital order), but there is no class of persons which does not experience the charity of this holy house, through the generous alms that its executive board distributes. If the royal Misericordia of Lisbôa boasts that 30,000 ducados of private alms and other sums, which are spent nearly every year for the redemption of captives, were distributed in one year, there is not a year that this great charitable institution does not spend 70,000 pesos in various purposes of charity, such as those already mentioned—poor Spaniards who are unwilling to ask alms, and prisoners, and masses for the blessed souls—so that it is estimated that this holy house has given 3,448,506 pesos in alms from the year 1599 until that of 1726. That sum has been produced by the pious bequests that have been left for charitable purposes by the inhabitants of Manila. To this should be added the advances that have been made to the general fund of these islands, in cases of extreme necessity and invasions by the enemy, in the years 1646, 650, 653, 663 to 668, and to that of 1735. The total, according to an accurate computation, amounts to 1,069,099 pesos.
557. The Misericordia takes care of the financial affairs of twenty-nine collative and of ten laical chaplaincies; and, in the royal college of San Joseph, of two fellowships.
558. It is governed by its own special rules, and their observance imposes the obligation of mortal sin. It has remarkable and venerated reliquaries. It enjoys many privileges from the supreme pontiffs, and innumerable indulgences. It is under the immediate royal protection by a royal decree of his Majesty, dated Sevilla, March 25, 1733, countersigned by Don Miguel de Villanueva, the king’s secretary. Concession was granted in that decree to place the royal arms in their church and college; to go out as a corporation on Holy Thursday to make the round of the stations; and entire credit is to be given in all the tribunals to the instruments of the secretary of the executive board.
Other charitable institutions
559. There are other charitable institutions in Manila in emulation of that of the holy Misericordia, although not so wealthy: in the cathedral church, in the seraphic tertiary order of the convent of Manila, in that of the convent of Dilao, in [the convent of] St. Dominic, in their convent of Binondoc, in their beaterio, in the convent of the calced Augustinian fathers, in that of the discalced Augustinians, and in that of the Society. All of them serve as a refuge for the poor; for from them is obtained money in proportion to good securities, and on pledges of gold and silver, at moderate rates of interest, for the trade of merchants, with which the poor Spaniards engage in business and increase their wealth. Their returns are used for the various charities purposed by the founders who placed their money there—such as divine worship; alms for the orders; dowries for poor Spanish, Indian, and mestiza girls, and for those of the Cavite shore; alms for the self-respecting poor; hospitals and prisons; and suffrages for the blessed souls in purgatory—which are perennial.