Note 59 — The Authorship of the Text

The first priests to come to the Philippines were six Augustinians who accompanied Legazpi on the expedition which in 1565 established the first permanent European settlement in the islands. Among them was Martin de Rada, who was one of the most important and influential priests during the early days of the Spanish colony, and who was the first linguist of note to work in the Philippines. The first language he learned was Visayan,59 native to the island of Cebú where the Spaniards first landed, but he also learned Chinese. In May 1572 he was elected provincial of his order, and in June 1575 he went with Jerónimo Marín, as ambassador to China, being “the first Spaniard who entered into that said kingdom.”60 In preparation for the voyage, we are told by González de Mendoza, whose famous and popular history of China first printed in 1585 derives in a great measure from information brought back by Rada, that Rada [21] “began with great care & studie to learne that language [Chinese], the which he learned in few daies: & did make thereof a dictionarie.”61 Rada was then not only the first to write in Visayan, but also the first to compile a Chinese dictionary, and more important still brought back with him to Manila from China many books of which Mendoza gives a list.62 These books, printed in the usual Chinese method from wood-blocks, could have provided models for the Spaniards in the Philippines who lacked European facilities for printing, and they may have given birth to the idea which resulted in the xylographic Doctrinas.