The different districts and islands, which are called provinces, and are 29 in number, are governed by Alcaldes. The more troublesome ones, or those requiring a military form of government, by military officers, who are also Corregidors. Samboangan on the south west coast of Mindanao, and the Marianas, have governors named from Manila, and these are continued from three to five years in office.
These Alcaldeships are a fertile source of abuses and oppression: their pay is mean to the last degree, not exceeding 350 dollars per annum, and a trifling per centage on the poll-tax. They are in general held by Spaniards of the lower classes, who finding no possible resource in Manila, solicit an Alcadeship. This is easily obtained, on giving the securities required by government for admission to these offices, which consist in two sureties[40] to an amount proportionable to the value of the taxes of the province, which all pass through the Alcalde’s hands.
Of the nature and amount of these abuses an idea will be better formed from the following abridged quotations, which are translated from the work of Comyn before quoted (p. 16).[41]
“It is indeed common enough to see the barber or lacquey of a governor, or a common sailor, transformed at once into the Alcalde in chief of a populous province, without any other guide or council than his own boisterous passions.
“Without examining the inconvenience which may arise from their ignorance, it is yet more lamentable to observe the consequences of their rapacious avarice, which government tacitly allows them to indulge, under the specious title of permissions to trade (indultos).
——“and these are such that it may be asserted, that the evil which the Indian feels most severely is derived from the very source which was originally intended for his assistance and protection, that is, from the Alcaldes of the provinces, who, generally speaking, are the determined enemies and the real oppressors of their industry.
“It is a well known fact, that far from promoting the felicity of the provinces to which he is appointed, the Alcalde is exclusively occupied with advancing his private fortune, without being very scrupulous as to the means he employs to do so: hardly is he in office than he declares himself the principal consumer, buyer, and exporter of every production of the province. In all his enterprises he requires the forced assistance of his subjects, and if he condescends to pay them, it is at least only at the price paid for the royal works. These miserable beings carry their produce and manufactures to him, who directly or indirectly has fixed an arbitrary price for them. To offer that price is to prohibit any other from being offered—to insinuate is to command—the Indian dares not hesitate—he must please the Alcalde, or submit to his persecution: and thus, free from all rivalry in his trade, being the only Spaniard in the province, the Alcalde gives the law without fear or even risk, that a denunciation of his tyranny should reach the seat of government.
“To enable us to form a more correct idea of these iniquitous proceedings, let us lift a little of the veil with which they are covered, and examine a little their method of collecting the ‘tributo’ (poll-tax).
“The government, desirous of conciliating the interests of the natives with that of the revenue, has in many instances commuted the payment of the poll-tax into a contribution in produce or manufactures: a year of scarcity arrives, and this contribution, being then of much higher value than the amount of the tax, and consequently the payment in produce a loss, and even occasioning a serious want in their families, they implore the Alcalde to make a representation to government that they may be allowed to pay the tribute for that year in money. This is exactly one of those opportunities, when, founding his profits on the misery of his people, the Alcalde can in the most unjust manner abuse the power confided to him. He pays no attention to their representations. He is the zealous collector of the royal revenues;—he issues proclamations and edicts, and these are followed by his armed satellites, who seize on the harvests, exacting inexorably the tribute, until nothing more is to be obtained. Having thus made himself master of the miserable subsistence of his subjects, he changes his tone on a sudden—he is the humble suppliant to government in behalf of the unfortunate Indians, whose wants he describes in the most pathetic terms, urging the impossibility of their paying the tribute in produce—no difficulty is experienced in procuring permission for it to be paid in money—to save appearance, a small portion of it is collected in cash, and the whole amount paid by him into the treasury, while he resells at an enormous profit, the whole of the produce (generally rice) which has been before collected!” Comyn, p. 134 to 138.
This extract, though long, is introduced as an evidence from a Spaniard (not of the lower order, or a disappointed adventurer, but a man of high respectability), of the shameless abuses which are daily practiced in this unfortunate country, and of which the Indian is invariably the victim: and it is far from being an overcharged one. Hundreds of other instances might be cited,[42] but this one will perhaps suffice to exonerate the writer of these remarks from suspicion of exaggeration, in pointing out some of the most prominent of them.