The reading of these instructions can give an idea of the internal government of a Filipino settlement, and the impossibility that impartiality and efficient justice can rule, if there is no intervention by the cura. I will add that the latter regards the village in a certain manner as his own. He enjoys seeing its prosperity and its advancement, as he thinks that this is his work. He takes an interest in its having good roads, harvests, tools, irrigation, and everything that can enrich and beautify it. Many curas spend all their money in public works, and on their churches. They rival one another, each striving to have in his own village the richest altars, the best houses, musicians, schools, and finely-dressed people. It is a sight worth seeing, a friar constituting himself overseer and director of a wooden bridge or of a causeway—administering a buffet to this one, a shove to another; praising that one, or calling this other a lazy fellow; giving a bunch of cigars to the one who stays an hour longer to work, or carries most bricks up to the scaffold; promising to kill a cow for the food of next day; and making them offers, often without any intention of fulfilling them, only with the object of encouraging them, and deceiving them like children.[9] But whoever knows the country can do no less than confess that this is the only means to get any advantage out of the lazy and childish Filipinos, who have no needs; and that the cura has infinite advantages over the governor, for his buffets do not offend, his requests oblige, and his love to the village and his disinterestedness captivate and interest these people, and make them as wax. Thus indeed can it be said that the cura is the soul of the village. In any province where its ruler is united with the curas, where the latter honor the alcalde and instruct him of all that happens, and he gives them the aid that is necessary to preserve their prestige—in that province, I say, there are no thefts, no disorders, no complaints, no tears, no insurrections, nor any other thing but a complete and durable peace,[10] and great submission and reverence to the Spaniards. At the present time that may be seen in the provinces where the governor has the right desires and a clear understanding, and recognizes the error into which the government has fallen during the last few years, in trying to deprive the curas of the civil administration, by forcing them to reduce themselves to spiritual matters, and to tolerate irreligious acts. The province of Pangasinan, for example, finds itself in this case under the orders of the worthy alcalde-mayor, Don Francisco de Lila, a volunteer of the militia of Manila and a very decided liberal: I have traveled through this province by night, with only one servant, without arms, and quite without fear, although there was not a soldier in the whole province. The horses and buffaloes were feeding in the meadows without herders; and, on my arrival at the capital, I went out with him in his carriage. In all the streets and from all the windows, we were saluted with great show of affection, and the children began to jump for joy, and to cry out, “Good afternoon, father.” The tears started to my eyes, and I said: “Ah, simple people, how little do you know the blessing that you enjoy! Neither hunger, nor nakedness, nor inclemency of the weather troubles you. With the payment of seven reals per year, you remain free of contributions. You do not have to close your houses with bolts. You do not fear that the district troopers will come in to lay waste your fields, and trample you under foot at your own firesides. You call ‘father’ the one who is in command over you. Perhaps there will come a time when you will be more civilized, and you will break out in revolution; and you will awake terrified at the tumult of the riots, and will see blood flowing through these quiet fields, and gallows and guillotines erected in these squares, which never yet have seen an execution.” “But is it not true also,” I reflected later, “that this present happiness may be transitory up to a certain point, and that a changing of the captain-general or of the alcalde can cause great evils, and change the aspect of so pleasing a picture? Yes, it is a lamentable truth; and I shall do what is in my power so that your lot may be less precarious, and so that the government which rules you may be so organized that you may be as little as possible subject to the injustice and avarice of men; and so that, wherever you see a Spaniard, you may salute him with love and call him father.”
But returning from our digressions to our matter in hand, I believe that if it is useful and indispensable for the parish priest to know, directly or indirectly, the particular affairs of the village, it is evident that far from undermining his authority, it ought to strengthen it as much as possible. From the time of the conquest, the curas have availed themselves of the expedient of applying some lashes to the natives, when the fathers have believed it necessary in order to correct faults, whether religious or those of another kind; and it is known that this has contributed not a little to the preservation of devotion. It is also known that they have not been hated for this by the islanders; but, on the contrary, the friars have constantly merited their love and have enjoyed a prestige which no one doubts. Everyone knows that if the friars have shown themselves exaggerated and unreasonable in anything, it has been in the protection of the Filipinos—more, indeed, than they deserved and than healthy justice demanded. Let us listen to the following words of Fray Casimiro Diaz: “The old laws in regard to the execution of the tributes were harsh, even to the point of making slaves of the debtors, and even killing them with lashes, or mutilating them. And although these laws were abolished from the time of Constantine as wicked, and have with the law of Christ been moderated within judicious limits, this benefit has not been obtained by the Indians. The Indian is beaten for his tribute. The goods of the Indian are sold for the tribute, and he is left destitute all his life. The Indian is enslaved for the tribute; for the cabeza de barangay, under pretext that he is getting back what the Indian owes, takes his house away from him, and, for the five reals that the Indian owes, makes him serve one whole year. In short, the wrongs which the tribute brings upon the poor wretch are so many, that the greatest charity which the parish priest can show him is to pay it himself.” The above shows how this good father grieves because the Indian has to pay five reals per year—five reals, which a Filipino can get by simply planting a cocoa or cacao tree at the door of his hut. How happy would be the Spaniards, or the French and English, and any other Europeans, if they had no more to pay than that! But it is not credible that Father Diaz was unacquainted with the people who so broke his heart, and that he did not know the measures resorted to in the country. A few pages farther on the same father says: “The poverty of these Indians is not their curse, but it is their own idleness and laziness, and they content themselves with little. They are not ruled by covetousness; and, although there is some covetousness, their fondness for doing nothing tempers it, and they wish to live rather by providence than to dedicate themselves to work.” What, then, would the good Father Diaz wish? that the Filipinos should not be made to contribute even the little amount that they now contribute, and that the government of España should send money there from the mother country in order to meet all the expenses of state, at the cost of increasing the heavy taxes which the Spaniards already pay? And all this, for what motive? Because the Filipinos are very “fond of doing nothing, desiring rather to live under the care of providence than to dedicate themselves to work.” For thus are the fathers all, often carrying this enthusiasm or mania for protection to a ridiculous extreme—for it is the same to touch one of their parishioners and the apple of their eye. At times they make use of unjust and compromising expressions: Thus the tobacco monopoly is “an imposition” or “a bit of knavery.” The impost for elections of gobernadorcillos, the signing of a passport, or any other accidental expense which is incurred [by the Indian], is “a theft.” The services for the repairing of roads and bridges are “annoyances” or “tyrannies.” And so on all in this tenor. Many would wish that the Filipino be left stretched out at ease all day long, and that afterward the manna should fall, and he have no other work than to open his mouth. Whoever has known the country, especially in former years, can do no less than say that there is not the least exaggeration in the picture which I draw; that the letters and remonstrances of the religious are what have been influential in dictating the laws of the Indias—which breathe out in every one of their lines, so great piety and mildness that one would believe that they treat only of innocent and tender lambs which are found among wolves. These know, too, that this same spirit has always led the religious to support the quarrels that have arisen against the civil and military government, which have, for the greater part, given origin to royal orders against them, and to the indiscreet articles of the ordinances which we have cited. Notwithstanding all this, during the last years certain new arrivals from España, especially those of the class of auditors and governors-general, have been feverish on hearing that the curas of the villages have whippings administered; and decrees have been fulminated against many provinces, in order to check this. In fact, they have attained that object; but the result of this most fatal error has been the increase of impiety in an astonishing manner, and there are a great number of villages where few go to mass, and more than the third part refuse to take the communion—which is probably also the cause of the increase in criminality which has been noted. But a short time ago, during the government of General Lardizabal, the religious presented a petition through the archbishop, asking that they be allowed to administer corrective punishment at the door of the church, as had always been their custom with those who were remiss in complying with the duties of religion. The government replied that the curas should avail themselves in such cases of advice and admonition, but that they should under no circumstances punish anyone corporally; and to complete matters, this ruling was circulated and communicated to the natives themselves, a measure that caused the greatest grief to the parish priests. The good Señor Lardizabal, who had an excellent heart, himself told me this incident, very well satisfied at the manner in which it had worked. We shall discuss this matter more at length in the chapter on “Internal policy.”
There are regular and secular clergy in Filipinas. The latter are more numerous, and include some mestizos, Chinese, and many full-blooded Filipinos. The bishops, in spite of being Spanish, have almost always shown themselves hostile to the friars and patrons to the seculars. The origin of this partiality must be found in the old-time fight between the bishops and the regular curas—who defend their rights with tenacity; while the natives are submissive and most humble to the prelates and flatter them. Notwithstanding the protection of the bishops, the seculars have generally had a very bad reputation; and many private persons, of every class and in every epoch, have openly declared against them.
The religious now living in Filipinas, excepting those of the Order of St. Francis, are not able to fill the curacies in their charge—although there are curas who take under their charge an extension which they are unable, notwithstanding all their efforts, to administer well. The cura of Surigao has twelve visitas or dependent towns. From this condition there results, among other evils, this: that when there is any cura who is unruly or of evil conduct, there is no method of summoning him to the convent and replacing him with another. Hence proceeds the laxity which is consequent on impunity.
I have been not a little surprised to see that there is a lack of religious in Filipinas, where they enjoy the thorough protection of the government, and great consideration in the villages; where all have at least what is necessary to live with ease,[11] since they are able to command more from their domestic servants, and from all the singers, sacristans, and other dependents of the Church—and this while in España there is such an oversupply of them, and they live so uncomfortably. The curacy is generally worth to the parish priest one peso fuerte[12] to each tribute. The ministers of villages which contain more than one thousand five hundred or two thousand tributes usually have one or more assistants, according to their wish, with the consent of the bishop. The parish priest generally gives the assistant a house, his board, and ten or twelve pesos fuertes per month; and leaves to him the fees for the masses, which are worth to him in excess of one peso fuerte every day—so that, besides his lodging and support, the assistant can count upon thirty-five or forty pesos fuertes per month. The administrative ecclesiastical division follows:
There is one archbishop in the capital, and three suffragans—to wit, the bishop of Nueva Segovia, he of Nueva Cáceres, and he of Zebú.
The archbishopric includes the provinces of Tondo, Bulacan, Pampanga, Batangas, Cavíte, Laguna, Bataan, Zambales, and Mindoro. It contains one hundred and sixty-seven curacies, of which ninety-five are served by religious, and seventy-two by secular priests.
The bishopric of Nueva Segovia comprises the provinces of Pangasinan, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Cagayan, and the missions of Ituy, of Pangui, of Abra, and of Batanes. It contains ninety-two curacies, of which eighty are served by religious, and twelve by seculars.
The bishopric of Nueva Cáceres comprises the provinces of Tayabas, part of Nueva Ecija, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, and Albay. It contains eighty-four curacies, of which twenty-seven are served by religious, and fifty-seven by seculars.
The bishopric of Zebú comprises the provinces of Zebú, Iloilo, Capis, Antique, Negros, Caraga, Misamis, Zamboanga, Samar, Leyte, and Marianas (three hundred leguas distant). It contains one hundred and forty-three curacies, of which eighty-six are served by regulars and fifty-seven by seculars.