[7] The Tagálog insurrection broke out prematurely through betrayal of the plot in August, 1896. [↑]
[8] Patricio de la Escosura, formerly minister and ambassador in Berlin, member of the Royal Spanish Academy, went to the Philippines about 1863, as royal commissary. His Memoria is important and worth consultation for the history of the islands. It has a prologue by Cañamaque. The first chapter on the teaching of Spanish argues that Spanish be taught the Filipinos. Chapter viii is on the creation of a school of physicians and surgeons. The various chapters of this book, although written as letters to the President of the Council of Ministers, in 1863, were not published until 1882. See Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca filipina. [↑]
[9] See VOL. XVII, p. 333. The Cuadrilleros occupied in a certain sense, the position occupied now by the constabulary. [↑]
[10] The author of this book was Manuel del Rio, who went to the Philippines in 1713, where he labored many years in various villages of Pangasinán. He was procurator-general of his order, definitor, and provincial; and was bishop-elect of Nueva Segovia at his death. A fuller title of his book is as follows: “Instrucciones morales y religiosas para el govierno, direccion, y acierto en la practica de nuestros ministerios. Que deben observar todos los religiosos de esta nuestra Provincia de el Santo Rossario de Philipinas del Orden de Predicadores.” See Peréz and Güemes’s Adiciones y continuacion (Manila, 1905), p. 114. [↑]
[11] The opening of the Suez Canal, as much probably as any other factor promulgated modern ideas in the Philippines, because of the vastly shorter route thus brought about between them and the mother country. [↑]
[12] The above citation is from Daniel Grifol y Aliaga’s prologue to his book La instrucción primaria en Filipinas (note by Zamora, p. 235). [↑]
[13] Fray Hilarion Diez, O.S.A., who was consecrated archbishop of Manila, October 21, 1827. His death occurred May 7, 1829. See Ferrando’s Historia, vi, pp. cliii, cliv. [↑]
[14] Zamora, speaking in his chapter ix of the intervention of the friar, and discussing in general the accusations against the religious orders, says (pp. 408–452): “The Spaniards in admiration of the sanity of life, of the austerity and purity of the morals of the religious; thankful for their good offices as intermediaries among themselves in their disputes, and among the Indians during rebellions; convinced of the efficacy of their word, and of their intervention in all things; of the necessity of their active and diligent coöperation for the conservation and consolidation of the colony: began to respect, venerate, and recognize in them spontaneously, a certain right to intervene in their affairs, to settle their differences, submit to their judgment their quarrels, and respect their decisions with more submission and conformity than would proceed from the legitimately constituted authority. The governors themselves could not leave the religious out of account in all that they undertook.” The Indian learned to distinguish, says Zamora, between the peaceful and helpful friar, who sought only his welfare, and the often brutal and harsh encomendero. “Not otherwise was the origin of the prestige of the religious among Indians and Spaniards;” and the lapse of time furthered it. The governors made use of the friars as ambassadors, counsellors, and in other capacities connected with the government. “The religious were the ones who formed the villages and made a record of their parishioners on the tribute and citizen list.” As the friars were the only ones who understood the native dialects and the natives were ignorant of Spanish, the authorities were forced to work through the former, and consequently, the friars had the right of “visé” of the tribute and citizen lists. They became the presiding officers of all local boards, and so had all the power. In the provinces the dwelling of the parish priest was open to strangers who lodged there as in a hotel. The envy and maliciousness of certain people, however, conspired to take away the power of the parish priest, a reform that was rather agreeable than otherwise to him, as it left him more time for his ministry; but he deplored it as it seemed to threaten the country at no distant future. “The vigilant, noble, and disinterested intervention of the parish priests in all matters was the chief and necessary wheel of the gubernatorial, administrative, and judicial mechanism, in their multiple and complicated attributes and duties. That was exercised with regularity, until, in the last years of Spanish dominion in that country, the impelling force restrained the impulse.” The fruit of the “reform” was the contempt of the natives for the Spaniards. “If the religious orders were the cause for the loss of these islands, they were so unconsciously and ignorantly, or consciously and maliciously.” Zamora argues that they were not in any way the cause for the loss of the country. “The religious communities knew that the ruin of the country was their own ruin, the end of the Spanish domination, the end even of their existence in Filipinas.” “On three bases rested the Spanish domination in Filipinas with its institutions and organisations: religion; the prestige of the parish-priest regulars; and the superiority of race in so great accord with Spanish nobility.” To freemasonry was due the destruction of the high ideal of religion, and also the idea of the superiority of race; and to freemasonry is due, then, the loss of the colony. The friars have not committed the abuses with which they have been credited, and were not the cause of the revolution. They were always the upholders of Spanish sovereignty, and protected the natives. [↑]
[15] The municipal reform of 1893, the “Maura law,” in conferring a considerable degree of local autonomy on Philippine towns, made the newly created municipal councils also school boards. It was a further step in taking from the padre the power to “visé” and supervise everything done, small and great, in a town. In promulgating the law, Governor-general Blanco (popular with the Filipinos for his liberal measures) took pains to explain that the priest’s school-inspecting powers, so far as religious teaching went, were to be the same as ever. As a matter of fact, this reform of Minister Maura, sent forth amid much accompaniment of proclamas in Spain and the islands, was virtually made a dead-letter under succeeding governors. Its non-enforcement, except in a few towns, was one of the complaints of the insurgents in 1896. See LeRoy “Friars in the Philippines,” in Political Science Quarterly for December, 1903, pp. 672, 673. [↑]
[16] Victor S. Clark (Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 58, May, 1905; Labor Conditions in the Philippines), says (p. 854): “Practically all the Christian population of Mindanao spoke Spanish in 1883, which indicates that the statistics probably did not cover the remoter Jesuit mission stations among the Moros. In that year about 21 per cent of the total population reported for the islands could read, but less than 5½ per cent could speak Spanish. In other words, 75 per cent of the persons able to read could do so only in the Malay dialects.” [↑]