Note 83 — Chapter VI · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE GOVERNOR: GENERAL RELATIONS

Mas, “Internal political conditions of the Philippines, 1842,” Blair and Robertson, LII, 69–70 and note. The keen observations of this official on social and governmental conditions in the Philippines are peculiarly pertinent, and they are as true in many regards today as they were seventy-five years ago. He recommended a regency to govern the Philippines, consisting of the governor as president, a military commander and an intendant of finance. The audiencia, according to his plan of reform, was to be limited to judicial affairs, with appellate jurisdiction over civil, criminal, and commercial cases. Instead of the audiencia as a court of appeals against the governor, the regency was to entertain appeals from the audiencia. Many of his ideas were incorporated into the new laws of the last half of the nineteenth century (ibid., 78–85).