Note 93 — The Franciscans

Chirino himself landed at Manila in 1590 shortly after Dasmariñas, and went almost immediately to Taytay where he learned Tagalog and was joined in 1592 by Martin Henriquez. At the time Juan de Oliver was preaching in that district, and it is exceedingly probable that he helped the newcomers with the language, for Chirino speaks of him in terms of highest praise. Henriquez “learned the language in three months and in six wrote a catechism in it, a confessionary, and a book of sermons for all the gospels of the year in the said idiom,”93 but he died on February 3, 1593 at Taytay. How thoroughly Chirino himself had grasped the fundamentals of Tagalog is evident from his three chapters94 on the language and letters [28] of the natives in which he prints the Ave Maria in Tagalog and reproduces the Tagalog alphabet—its first appearance in a European publication. But Chirino, who remained in the provinces until 1595, would have mentioned his participation and that of Henriquez in the Doctrina of 1593, so we record them as possible but not probable consultants.