He concludes by saying:
“The resultant difference of the foregoing comparison, founded on public documents, shows an excess of fifty-two per cent of increase in each eighteen years; and if a like proportion continues, the population of the Filipinas Islands will be doubled in thirty-four years—an increase which could be judged incredible if we did not have an extraordinary example in Filadelfia [i.e., Philadelphia], which has doubled its population in twenty-eight years, as Buffon, supported by the authority of Doctor Franklin, affirms.”
The above assertion of Comyn has been realized now in all exactness, if we are to judge by the assertions, in his published works, of Don Felipe de Pan, a studious newspaper man of Manila; for, according to that writer, the population of Filipinas exceeded 9,000,000 in 1876.
Ferreiro, secretary of the Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid [i.e., “Geographical Society of Madrid”], also calculated the population of Filipinas in 1887 at 9,000,000 approximately, a number which seems to be somewhat above actual fact.
In an investigation finished in the last quarter of 1894, the population of the archipelagoes which composed the general government of Filipinas appears in the following form:
| Christian parish population | 6,414,373 |
| In concealment [i.e., refugees] | 128,287 |
| Regular and secular clergy | 2,651 |
| Indian and Spanish military | 21,513 |
| Those in asylums [asilados] | 689 |
| Criminals [penados] | 702 |
| Chinese foreigners | 74,504 |
| White foreigners | 1,000 |
| Moros | 309,000 |
| Heathen | 880,000 |
| Total | 7,832,719 |
Finally, the secretary’s office of the archbishopric of Manila offers us the following enumeration with respect to the Catholics existing in the archipelagoes of Filipinas, Marianas, and Carolinas, in the year 1898, according to the following lists:
Number of souls by dioceses
| In the archbishopric of Manila | 1,811,445 |
| In the bishopric of Cebú | 1,748,872 |
| In the bishopric of Jaro | 1,310,754 |
| In the bishopric of Nueva Segovia | 997,629 |
| In the bishopric of Nueva Cáceres | 691,298 |
| Total number of Catholics | 6,559,998 |
To whom is due this increase of Catholicism, and this growth of the population of Filipinas in general, from the time of the conquest by the Spaniards? It is due to the regular and secular clergy. One can scarcely ascribe any importance to the immigration into Filipinas during the lapse of years. The Chinese, and the Europeans (including the Spaniards themselves), can be considered, as a general rule, as birds of passage, who come to live here for a few years and then return to their own country. The Filipino population has increased, thanks to the organization and good government at the centers [of population], which were established chiefly by missionary action, at the time when the natives of the evangelized territories became Christians. The secular power, even when aided by arms, has not even attempted to form villages of the heathen; neither have the military posts become well populated or stable settlements. The center of attraction and of coherence in Filipino villages has always been, and is still, the church and the convent. The parish priest (who is not a bird of passage) is, as a rule, the most respected authority, the chief guarantee of order and peace, and the most careful guardian of morality—an indubitable and most important cause of increase in the population of every country. The numerous and important settlements, which have now other powerful roots and elements of cohesion, began and were formed thus. If the center of union of which we are speaking be removed from them, especially if they are recent and young, one will see how families break up, and how the new citizens easily return to the life of the mountain.