Note 9 — Chapter VIII · The Philippines Three Hundred Years Ago.
Reading edition
Old Social Order of the Filipinos but Little Disturbed.—Some governors seem to have done their utmost to improve the condition of the people and to govern them well. Santiago de Vera, as we have seen, even went so far as to commission the worthy priest, Padre Juan de Plasencia, to investigate the customs and social organization of the Filipinos, and to prepare an account of their laws, that they might be more suitably governed. This brief code—for so it is—was distributed to alcaldes, judges, and encomenderos, with orders to pattern their decisions in accordance with Filipino custom.9