Note 8 — Chapter VII · THE AUDIENCIA AND THE GOVERNOR: THE MILITARY JURISDICTION

While most of the independent commentators writing on the subject seem to have conceived of the duties of the governor as savoring more of war than of peace, we may note that Manuel Bernáldez Pizarro, for many years a resident and official in the Philippines, writing in 1827, urged that the governors there should be efficient administrators rather than soldiers. It must be remembered, however, that the political conditions in the Philippines during his period were widely different from those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the Islands were constantly exposed to the attack of outside enemies and liable to insurrections within. The chief problems of the nineteenth century were administrative, rather than military. He pointed out that governors had already exhibited too much of the militant spirit in dealing with the problems of government, “not heeding the opinions and customs of the country, but depending on the force of arms,” or their asesores.8 This had the effect of causing dissensions between the governor and audiencia, and the resultant discord had furnished a very bad example for the natives and residents of the colony.