89. The order of our father St. Francis entered Filipinas in the year 1577, when fifteen religious arrived at Manila, all apostolic men. Of these, six came from the province of San Joseph, two from that of Santiago, one from La Concepcion, another from Mechoacan, and five from the province of Santo Evangelio in Mexico. The superior of all was father Fray Pedro de Alfaro, of the province of Santiago (incorporated into that of San Joseph). On the second of August in the same year was founded the convent of Manila, with the title of Santa Maria de Los Angeles; their first guardian was father Fray Pedro de Ayera, a man in every respect remarkable. He was provincial of Mechoacan, and bishop-elect; and he was provisor and ecclesiastical judge of Filipinas. This convent usually has more than thirty religious—novices, students, and graduates; and it is the head of a very religious province of Discalced, who have more than fifty convents (which will soon be enumerated), in which they religiously administer the sacraments to one hundred and thirty thousand Christians.
90. This province during the first fourteen years was a custodia, subject to the province of San Joseph; and it was governed by four custodians, up to the year 1591. It was then erected into a province, and its first provincial elected; this was father Fray de Jesus, a Catalan from the province of San Joseph, a most accomplished religious. From then until this year of 662 there have been twenty-three provincials. This province has the following convents, most of which have very substantial buildings of hewn stone, and handsome churches well adorned with altars, reredoses, and ornaments, with much silver—and with singers, organs, and other musical instruments, and ecclesiastical jewels.
91. Cabite, two leguas from Manila, is the chief port of Filipinas; it is safe, and very convenient for all the ships of that region. With soldiers, pilots, and mariners, it numbers one hundred and fifty Spanish citizens; there are also many Indians, and it has a ward of Mahometan Lascars, and another of Chinese. It has a parochial church, with secular priests, a hospital, and convents; that of San Francisco is the second of this [Franciscan] province, the third being that of Ternate. The rest of the convents are in mission parishes, each one with a religious or two teachers. There are six in the environs of Manila—Dilao, Santa Ana, Sampaloc, Polo, Bocaui, and Meycahuayan. There are ten [sic] along the lake of Bay—Moron, Tanay, Pililla, Mabitac, Siniloan, Pangil, Paete, Lumban, Santa Cruz, Pila, and Baños. There are seven in the mountains or tingues of that lake—Nacarlan, Lilio, Mahayhai, Cabinti, Luchan, Tayabas, and Sadiaya. On the seacoast between east and north are six—Baler, Casiguran, Binangonan, Mauban (or Lampon), Atimonan, and Silanga (an island), where end the archbishopric and the use of the Tagálog language. The same coast extends through the province and bishopric of Camarines; and journeying by way of the eastern point to the southern coast, there are twenty convents—Paracali, Indan, Daet, Ligmanan, Quipayo, Naga (which is Caceres), Bula, Iriga, Libon, Polanguin, Oas, Camarines, Albay, Tabaco, Malinao, Bacon, Casiguran, Nabua, Quipia, and Bolosan. For just reasons, I omit the administration of Ilocos, Panay, and other districts. In Great China the order now has father Fray Antonio de Santa Maria, a man who is great in learning and in the religious life; with another companion, a learned preacher, he aids in the propagation of the gospel in that great empire.
92. This province is the only one of these Indias that has six of its sons as holy canonized protomartyrs in Xapon—besides twenty-seven other martyrs here and in other islands. This province has also gained great distinction by having in Manila the convent of Santa Clara, and in it Mother Geronima with many others who have inherited much of her spirit.
93–94. [In these sections Letona enumerates some of the holy Franciscans who have been canonized from the Indias.]
[1] Baler is capital of the subprovince of Príncipe, in Luzón; its latitude is 15° 40′ 6″ North.
[2] The following statement by Dr. David P. Barrows—who is chief of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, Manila, and is probably our best authority on this subject—presents the latest view regarding the origin of the Filipinos, adopted after much patient and enthusiastic research in that field by him and other American ethnologists. It may be found in the recently-published Census of the Philippine Islands, i, pp. 411–417.
“Ethnologically, no less than geographically, the Philippines belong to the Malay archipelago. With the exception of the aboriginal dwarf blacks, the Negritos, who are still found inhabiting the forests in a great number of localities, all the tribes of the islands, whether Christian, Mohammedan, or Pagan, are, in my belief, derived from the Malayan race. We probably have in these tribes two types which represent an earlier and a later wave of immigration; but all came from the south, all speak languages belonging to one common stock, and all are closely related in physical type and qualities of mind. As representative of the first migratory movement may be named the Igorot, the mountain head-hunter of Northern Luzón; and of the latter almost any of the present Christian or Mohammedan tribes. The migratory period of this latter type, which constitutes the great bulk of the present population of the islands, is almost covered by the early historical accounts of the exploration and settlement of the Far East.
“Four hundred years ago, when the Portuguese discoverers and conquerors reached southeastern Asia, they found the long peninsula in which the continent ends, and the islands stretching south and east in this greatest and most famous of archipelagoes, inhabited by a race which called itself Malayu. On the island of Java this race had some ten centuries before been conquered by Brahmin Hindus from India, whose great monuments and temples still exist in the ruins of Boro Budor. Through the influence and power of the Hindus the Malay culture made a considerable advance, and a Sanskrit element, amounting in some cases to twenty per cent of the words, entered the Malayan languages. How far the Hindu actually extended his conquests and settlements is a most interesting study, but can hardly yet be settled. He may have colonized the shores of Manila Bay and the coast of Luzón, where the names of numerous ancient places show a Sanskrit origin. The Sanskrit element is most pronounced in the Tagálog and Moro tongues. (Pardo de Tavera, El Sanscrito en la lengua Tagala.)