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Nineteenth-Century Philippines and the Friar-Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Vicente R. Pilapil
Vicente R. Pilapil*
Affiliation:
Manila, Philippines
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Extract

At the closing years of the nineteenth century the Philippine Islands became a territorial part of the United States. For this “imperialist” domination of another people, the latter government, being based on the principle of popular sovereignty, had to find a justification. It found reason in the contention that it was helping the Filipino people achieve their independence from the despotism of Spanish rule; after that, the United States Government felt obliged to provide a stable government in the islands in place of the former colonial government. For the benefit of the American people, most of whom had only then heard of the Philippines, scores of articles were written on this Far Eastern country. In line with the government's position—that of posing as the “ savior ” of an oppressed people—and influenced by the revolutionary propaganda which had characterized the period of struggle for independence, these writers tended to paint a more or less dark picture of the Philippine Archipelago as it stood in the last century of Spanish colonization. What really was the state of the Philippines in the nineteenth century has remained a question of great interest and undiminished historical importance. Another Philippine affair was met with equal interest in this country: the friar-problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , October 1961 , pp. 127 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1961

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References

1 Because they were sailing westward from Spain across the Pacific Ocean, these navigators misconceived of the Philippines as being situated in the West. Under this misconception the Spaniards thought that the Philippine Islands belonged to them in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Tordesillas. The three expeditions mentioned were the Loaisa (1525), Saavedra (1527), and Villalobos (1542) expeditions.

2 The official Spanish commissioner, Sinibaldo de Mas, for example, proposed the abandonment of the Philippines in his Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1842 (3 vols.; Madrid, 1843). The particular volume referred to is the third in this report entitled, “The Internal Political Condition of the Philippines,” of which, because of its contents, only “few copies have been printed for the ministers, gentlemen of the Council of the Government, and other persons influential in the affairs of the nation. Consequently, your excellency is requested to keep it for your own use, without allowing it to circulate or permitting a copy to be made of it,” a note which the author himself wrote in the text of the copy belonging to the Peabody Institute Library. This rare third volume is given in an English translation in Blair, Emma Helen and Robertson, James Alexander (eds.), The Philippine Islands (55 vols.; Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1903–1909), 52, 29–90.Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as B & R.

3 Bourne, Edward G., “Historical Introduction,” B & R, 1, 69.Google Scholar

4 Leroy, James A., The Americans in the Philippines (2 vols.; Boston and New York, 1914), 1, 43.Google Scholar

5 A text of the Maura Law is given as Exhibit I in John Rogers Meigs Taylor, “The Philippine Insurrection Against the United States; A Compilation of Documents with Notes and Introductions” (a five-volume work in galley proofs kept at the U. S. National Archives), I, 50FZ. Subsequent references will be to Vol. I of this work. An exposé on why these volumes were not published is Farrell’s, John T., “An Abandoned Approach to Philippine History: John R. M. Taylor and the Philippine Insurrection Records,” The Catholic Historical Review, 39 (January, 1954), 385–407.Google Scholar

6 Cavanna, Jésus María y Manso, C.M., Rizal and the Philippines of his Days (Manila, 1957), pp. 75–76.Google Scholar The author lists the Spanish rulers and their respective decrees regarding education.

7 Ibid., pp. 86–87.

8 Mallat, J., Les Philippines; histoire, géographie, moeurs, agriculture, industrie et commerce des colonies espagnoles dans l’Oceanie (2 vols.; Paris, 1846), 1, 388.Google Scholar

9 Op. cit., Section, “Instrucción Publica,” II, 1.

10 Infra, pp. 146–147.

11 A document of identification.

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13 LeRoy, I, 52.

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15 Op. cit., I, 56. The author is by no means a panegyrist of the Spanish regime in the Philippines.

16 Voyage de la Perouse autour du Monde (Paris, 1797), II, 347, quoted in B & R, I, 71.

17 Crawfurd, John, History of the Indian Archipelago (3 vols.; Edinburgh, 1820), II, 446.Google Scholar

18 Op. cit., I, 357.

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20 Op. cit., p. 287.

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23 A statement supposedly made by a viceroy of Mexico; Mallat, I, 589.

24 “An Englishman,” “Remarks on the Philippine Islands, 1819–1822” (Calcutta, 1828), B & R, LI, 113.

25 Ibid., p. 114.

26 Taylor, Exhibit 6, 60FZ.

27 Phelan, John Leddy, The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565–1700 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1959), p. 160.Google Scholar

28 Gutierrez, Manuel et al., “The Friar Memorial of 1898” (Manila, April 21, 1898), B & R, LII, 243–244.Google ScholarPubMed

29 Ibid., pp. 246–247.

30 See Middleton’s, Thomas critique on the “Reports of the Philippine Commission (of 1899–1900) on Religious and Educational Matters,” American Ecclesiastical Review, 28 (1903), 262–302.Google Scholar

31 Reports of the Philippine Commission to the President; Senate Document No. 138, 56th Congress, 1st session (4 vols.; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900–1901), I, 83. Hereafter cited as Senate Document No. 138.

32 Taylor, Exhibit 6, 60FZ.

33 Reports of the Taft Philippine Commission (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901), Part I, p. 29. Part I of these reports will be referred to as Taft Commission and Part II as Senate Document No. 190 (56th Congress, 2nd session).

34 B & R, LII, 57.

35 de Mas, Sinibaldo, “Character and influence of the friars,” ibid., 28, 245.Google Scholar

36 Taft Commission, p. 27.

37 “To the Filipino … [the friar lands] seemed immense in size and of boundless revenues, and yet for the period between 1880 and 1893, according to original accounts which have found their way into the mass of documents from which this compilation is made (P. I.R. [i.e., the Philippine Insurgent Records which were captured by the American Army], 320–4), after the fixed charges for improvements in the estate of Santa Rosa de Pandi had been deducted the amount turned over to the religious order owning the property as profits was only two percent of the sum which has lately been paid for that property. As an example of the methods of administration it is of interest to note that 8,800 pesos in 1888 were spent by the estate for the purchase of draft animals for the tenants. They were given until 1893 to reimburse the amount so expended, and no interest was charged upon it. In Pangasinan Province in 1898 a third of the crop was paid as rent upon certain church estates there (P. I. R., 1222–1). In 1896 the value of the sugar crops upon the estates of Calamba, Santa Rosa, and Biñan was 1,586,263 pesos. The rent received by the religious corporations owning these estates were 33,200 pesos (P.I.R., 1222–2).” Taylor, 24FZ.

38 The Royal Cedula of November 7, 1751, summarized the investigation conducted and presented its findings therewith. This was reprinted in La Democracia (Manila), November 25, 1901.

39 Taft Commission, p. 27.

40 Senate Document No. 190, pp. 68–70, 90.

41 This is the title of his pamphlet bearing the pseudonym of Plaridel, M.H., La Soberanía Monacal en Filipinas (Barcelona, 1888),Google Scholar which he subtitled “Notes on the disastrous preponderance of the friar in the islands, in the political as well as in the economic and religious spheres.” This rare original edition can be found at the Library of Congress.

42 Senate Document No. 190, pp. 64–65. Father Villegas’ knowledge of these matters is very reliable because, aside from having stayed in the Philippines for quite a time and holding a high office in the Order, he had also been a parish priest for some many years.

43 de Comyn, Tomas, Estado de las Islas Filipinas en 1810 (Madrid, 1820), p. 161.Google Scholar

44 Senate Document No. 138, I, 57.

45 Archbishop Basilio Sancho de Santa Justa y Rufina, “Instructions to the secular clergy,” issued in Manila on October 25, 1771, B & R, L, 265.

46 Senate Document No. 190, loc. cit.

47 Taylor, Exhibit 6, 60FZ.

48 Taft Commission, p. 29.

49 “How Our Government Adjusted the Philippine Church Problem,” The New Century, XIX (October, 1904), 1.

50 Ibid.

51 De Comyn, p. 154.

52 “Correspondence of the Governor General to the Ministro de Ultramar” (No. 1,888; Manila, August 7, 1895), Memoria que al Senado dirige el General Blanco acerca de los ultimos sucesos ocurridos en la Isla de Luzon (Madrid, 1897), p. 145.

53 de la Costa, Horacio S.J., “The Development of the Native Clergy in the Philippines,” Theological Studies, 8 (June, 1947), 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 The Real Patronato de Indias was a right granted by Pope Julius II in his Bull Universalis Ecclesiae to the Spanish monarchs to permit or to provide for the erection of churches in the colonies and to present candidates for high colonial church offices and benefices. In return for this privilege, the Spanish crown was to promote the Christianization of her pagan colonized subjects and provide for the material needs of the Church in these colonies. See Hernáez, Francisco Xavier, Colección de bulas, breves y otros documentos relativos a la Iglesia de América y Filipinas (Brussels, 1879), 1, 12–27.Google Scholar

55 Op. cit., p. 138.

56 B & R, LII, 238–239.

57 Senate Document No. 190, p. 73.

58 Majul, Cesar Adib, The Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Philippine Revolution (Quezon City, 1957), pp. 92–93.Google Scholar A good number of quotations from these communications are given here.

>59 Taft Commission, p. 30.

60 Palgrave, pp. 149–150.