Note 18 — I. Agriculture and Landholding at the Time of the Discovery and Conquest

“Customs of the Tagalogs,” Juan de Plasencia: “* * * * The lands on the ‘tingues’ or mountain-ridges, are not divided, but owned in common by the barangay. Consequently, at the time of the rice harvest, any individual of any particular barangay, although he may come from some other village, if he commences to clear any land may sow it, and no one can compel him to abandon it. There are some villages (as, for example, Pila de la Laguna) in which these nobles, or maharlicas, paid annually to the dato a hundred gantas of rice. The reason of this was that, at the time of their settlement there, another chief occupied the lands, which the new chief upon his arrival, bought with his own gold; and therefore the members of his barangay paid him for the arable land, and he divided it, among those whom he saw fit to reward. But now, since the advent of the Spaniards, it is not so divided. * * *

“The chiefs in some villages had also fisheries, with established limits, and sections of the rivers for markets. At these no one could fish, or trade in the markets, without paying for the privilege, unless he belonged to the chief’s barangay or village.” (Bl. and Rb., Vol. 7, pp. 174–175.)

Also, T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Census of the Philippines, 1903, Vol. I, p. 325.