[The discipline of the third regiment of the line before the insurrection was poor, a fact that was attributed, among other things, to the bad condition of the barracks. On the other hand, a corps composed of native troops recruited from Manila and the neighboring places remained loyal, and was used to good effect in putting down the insurrection. In the opinion of many, native troops officered by Spaniards (even to the sergeants and corporals) would prevent disaffection in the future, and be much better than Peninsular troops. In this treatise it is Matta’s purpose to set forth “the measures by which the tranquillity of these inhabitants and the conservation of this precious portion of the Spanish monarchy, will be conserved in the future.” The moral condition of the islands is most delicate and merits the close attention of the government, “and most especially of your Excellency, to whom is chiefly confided the tranquillity and conservation of these important possessions—which now demand radical administrational and economic reforms that will permit the development of the wealth of their fertile soil, and the welfare of all their inhabitants; and peremptory measures of foresight and security, which will render those advantages lasting, keep the country loyal, and inalterably bind the union of the islands with the mother-country.” In consequence of the civil wars in Spain, the Spanish government has been compelled to draw heavy sums against the treasury of the Philippines, by which not only has the treasury been exhausted but a debt of more than four million pesos incurred—a debt that cannot be met for years, “both because the needs of the colony are increasing annually, and because the remainder left from the revenues, after covering the ordinary obligations of the budgets, is almost all spent in tobacco leaf, which is sent for the consumption of the mother-country, in accordance with the orders of the government.” In regard to the military defense of the country, conditions are as bad. “There are but few arms and they are in poor shape. The provinces are undefended. The army is composed almost exclusively of natives, and they are so few in number that the army is insufficient to defend the capital and fort of Cavite in case of a foreign invasion.” Indeed, in case of invasion it might be best to raze the fortifications built at the expense of so great sacrifices.]
In general there is to be seen considerable indifference, and even disaffection, to Peninsular interests. Ideas of emancipation are sheltered in many bosoms. Discontent swarms in all places. It is given utterance with effrontery, and is developed and fomented in various manners. Since the beginning of the colony, boldness, deceit, and acrimonious speech have had a foremost seat, but greed is today the dominant passion in the white people. Their needs are many and there are few means of satisfying them. The hot climate especially contributes to captiousness, and the development of vehement passions. A multitude of jealous, complaining, and evil-intentioned men foment the discontent, to which also pusillanimous persons contribute by their indiscreet and excessive fear. Although by means of different passions, there is a manifest tendency to constantly discredit the dispositions of the government, to attack maliciously the authorities who represent it, and to foment rivalry and discord among them, to which both the complexity of the legislation and the burning climate lend themselves. Thus all concur in weakening the prestige that gives force to the government. The malcontents have the necessary time to gather new proselytes, to consolidate a faction against the mother-country, to prepare the will of the masses; and they await the time and opportunity for the realization of their desires. This plan is not in writing, but is engraved in the hearts of those who direct it, shows itself by its works, and is the result of the tendency of the age, of the calamitous circumstances in which the mother-country finds itself, and of the kind of abandonment in which these important possessions are held.
[Notwithstanding the royal order of April 25, 1837, prohibiting publications that might disturb public order and weaken the prestige of the government, such publications have circulated freely in Manila, thus increasing the discontent. In such publications the followers of Apolinario are called innocent, and the execution of the rebels in the camp of Alitao has been termed assassination. All things have combined to destroy in Manila “the prestige and moral force that have been hitherto the principal foundation of our domination.”]
[Although the provinces are not yet so greatly disaffected as is Manila], their moral condition is very different from that when they generally pronounced against the English in 1762 and gave the victory to Anda. Mejico belonged to España, and its treasury contributed to the support of the islands, which had the exclusive benefit of a traffic which the public especially valued, and whose conservation was inseparable from union to the mother-country. North-American independence and the French revolution had not yet come to fix the future destiny of all the colonial possessions of the world.[5] The regular clergy, the principal base of our domination, then exercised an influence over the inhabitants, which time has almost entirely vitiated. Little care is taken for the instruction of their members, from which it results that some of them with their gross manners, stupid pretensions, and exactions from the chiefs of the provinces, and the gobernadorcillos and notables of the villages, occasion anger, quarrels, and discord which disturb the quiet of the inhabitants, distract and embarrass the authorities, and nourish those indiscreet and tenacious struggles in which all lose, and which have contributed so greatly to the rapid undermining of the base of our power in the provinces. The mistrust of a sad future leads many of them to engage in commercial business, and conduces to avarice and to a worldly life, so that they have lost their religious prestige, without gaining the respect and the consideration due to eminent and beneficent citizens. Without doubt there are respectable men among the individuals of the regular clergy, who, superior to circumstances, devote themselves entirely to the fulfilment of the duties of their sacred ministry; who as true fathers of their parishioners, look carefully after their comfort and welfare; and who, for that reason possessing their esteem, are, consequently, one of the chief supports of the action of the government in the villages. It is with reference to these that I have remarked in another place that both religion and policy recommend them. Let all be placed in the same category, and let strict watch be put on the instruction and conduct of the parish priests, in which, truly, there is much to correct; and the happiness of the provinces will be secure, if, in addition, the improvements demanded by the state of civilization and of wealth in some of the provinces, and by the genius and circumstances of the various races inhabiting them, and the differences of the times in which we are living, are made in their government and administration.
For that purpose it must be kept in mind that ambition is wont to affect the Spanish people transplanted to these distant and hot climes; that arrogant presumption is the distinctive characteristic of their descendants; and we must consider duly the characteristic qualities of the natives.
As I have remarked to your Excellency on a different occasion, I consider the moral picture of the Indian as very difficult to draw, for frequently one finds united in him abjectness and ferocity, timidity and a wonderful fearlessness and courage in danger, and indolent laziness and slovenliness combined with industry and avaricious self-interest. It is impossible to represent exactly under one single stroke all the phases of their contradictory character. But in general the Indian is pacific, superstitious, indolent, respectful to authority, heedless, distrustful, and deceitful. Dominated by his first sensations, and most fertile in expedients to extricate himself from difficulties, or to carry out his design at a moment’s notice, he must be considered as a minor who follows the dictates of his own will; and, as such, he must be directed for his own good, his difficulties must be forestalled, corrected and punished. The natives are also spiteful and revengeful when they believe themselves offended; and at such times, hiding their ill-will under the veil of a deceitful humility, they await the opportunity for satisfying it, and generally give rein suddenly to their ill-will with perfidy and ferocity.
[The contradictory character of the Filipino native explains the ease with which a large province can be governed by one official with the aid of the parish priests and two or three dozen soldiers; while, on the other hand, the insurance companies of India refuse to stand the risks of mutiny in a vessel employing half a dozen natives from Manila in its crew. The natives know no middle path between abject respect and insolent contempt, in their attitude toward the whites. In case of a foreign or internal war the governors or alcaldes-mayor of the provinces would be the least capable of directing affairs, because of their ignorance of the native languages and customs, and because they are in continual conflict with the natives over the collection of the tribute, while at the same time they exercise a monopoly in trade.]
For a very long period the elements of discord among the authorities have been numerous for lack of a special and analogous legislation, enacted with regard to the genius and circumstances of the various peoples inhabiting these islands and the enormous distance separating them from the mother-country. During these latter years, there have been heaped up on this unfavorable foundation the elements emanating from the civil war which has covered the mother-country with mourning, and those of our own political dissensions; the development and tendencies of the revolutionary principles common to all the colonial possessions of the world, and which only force, supported by the interest of self-preservation, is capable of restraining; and lastly the impressions which it has been impossible to keep from transmission to the natives and other races, in proportion as the knowledge of our language becomes general to them, and as they become civilized, and contract our tastes and necessities through the increase of commerce and industry, and observe from anear the confusion resulting from our lack of harmony. This is, in my opinion, the chief cancer of this body politic, and will finish it very speedily unless your Excellency, acting with the discretion and the energy so strongly charged in the laws, and especially in the royal order of April 25, 1837, apply the remedy peremptorily demanded by our situation.
[Discord and confusion and the spirit of resistance are rife throughout the provinces. The events of 1820 and 1823, the sedition of Apolinario in October, 1841, and the mutiny of the troops, although different in their origin, all exhibit the “perfidy and ferocity that always accompany movements of color in Ultramar.” The prestige of the government is weakened, which formerly was, with religion, the chief foundation of Spanish domination. The political factions that have arisen in the last six years, and which are now perfectly organized, are greatly to blame. The Peninsulars and Spanish Filipinos will end by destroying each other if the fitting remedy is not speedily applied. In a report made to the government after the sedition of Apolinario had been put down, Matta said that the origin of the confraternity consisted “only in the character of the superstition which distinguishes these natives, who most readily believe whatever is presented to them under the veil of religion and of the marvellous; asserted that it became fanaticism as soon as measures were taken against Apolinario and his confreres, and that it became a declared sedition when the unfortunate Ortega attacked them in Ygsaban with more valor than prudence; and that from that time presenting the appearance of a near insurrection in the neighboring provinces, it is to be feared that it would have been converted into a revolution capable of compromising the conservation of these important possessions had not the seditious ones been promptly defeated and severely punished in Alitao.” Matta’s report also said that probably Apolinario’s expulsion from the hospital of San Juan de Dios in Manila, and the measures taken against his associates, together with the suggestions of the adherents of independence, contributed to the holding of the novena in Tayabas in spite of the precautions taken by the military and ecclesiastical authorities. These occurrences were principally the effect of superstition and fanaticism; and although the ideas of emancipation have been present in the Philippines, as in all colonies since the Spanish-American revolution, yet ideas of emancipation are limited in the islands to a few Spaniards who do not even form a political party, but only a crowd of complainers who are either not government employees, or are employees who take it ill that Spaniards are sent from the Peninsula to fill offices that they believe belong properly to themselves.[6] The ideas of emancipation have not yet contaminated, nor will they in a long time contaminate the Chinese, the Chinese mestizos, Spanish mestizos, or the natives, with the exception of a few of the “secular clergy, as insignificant because of their ignorance and few resources as by their lack of influence among their countrymen.” Whatever be the opinions of the influential Spaniards born in the islands, they recognise that political upheavals would be as fatal to themselves as to the Peninsulars. In the insurrection of last January, among the six white officers assassinated or wounded, three of those killed and one wounded belonged to the revolting regiment, while the two remaining who were wounded were Europeans. The safety of all lies in the stability of the government; but it must be noted that events are daily more serious and that the discontent is spreading. Important reforms are necessary, but matters must be viewed only in the light of the public cause. “Without virtues there can be no prestige; and, without prestige, it will also be impossible for the lesser part to dominate the great whole.” The conservation of the islands depends on “radical reforms in their legislation, and peremptory measures of precaution and security.” Such reforms are:]
1st. The formation of a special law for these islands, analogous and framed with reference to the genius and circumstances of the various peoples inhabiting them, and to their great distance from the mother-country. [Matta believes in a law that will outline the duties of the governor and captain-general, and place under his general supervision real heads of the various departments of government, who shall be responsible. A Colonial Council or Cabinet for consultation on affairs of general public interest should also be formed. This separation of duties into specific classes, the heads of each department to be subordinate to the governor, in accordance with law ii, título ii, book iii, will ensure the right use of the governing functions. To continue so many unconnected duties under the governor will only add to the confusion.]