Note 10 — Administration of Government and the Captaincy-General

Each province is subdivided into a greater or less number of towns. Each town has a gobernadorcillo [i.e., little or petty governor], with assistants and alguacils of justice, whose number is fixed. They discharge various functions, among them the administration of justice in regard to fields and palm-trees, and that of police. In some towns where there are a sufficient number of Sangley mestizos (who are the descendants of the Chinese), they form, when they obtain permission from the government, a separate community, with a gobernadorcillo and other members of the magistracy taken from their own midst. In the towns which are the capitals of the province there is often a gobernadorcillo for mestizos and one for natives. This latter always takes command of the province in case of the sickness or absence of the alcalde-mayor. The gobernadorcillos have in their towns all the municipal responsibility proper to the authority which is conferred upon them by their appointment. Page 325They are especially bound to aid their parish priests in everything pertaining to worship and the observance of religious laws. They try civil causes up to the value of two taels of gold, or forty-four pesos. They take action in criminal cases by collecting the preliminary evidence, which they submit to the provincial chiefs. They are under obligation to see to the collections of the royal revenue, and further to give notice of the ordinances for good government. They are permitted to collect certain dues that are specified in their own credentials. Each town has also other citizens known under the name of cabezas [i.e., heads] de barangay. Each cabeza is obliged to look after forty-five or fifty tributes which comprise as many families, and that is the signification of barangay. The cabezas must reside with them in the district or street assigned; must attend in person to the good order and harmony of their individuals; must apportion among them all the services that are due from them collectively; must settle their disputes; and must collect the tribute under a fixed bond, in order to effect its delivery afterward in entirety to the gobernadorcillo, or directly to the provincial chief, as happens in that of Tondo. The cabezas are ex-officio attorneys for their barangays in all matters that concern them collectively, and electors of the gobernadorcillos and other officials of justice. For that interesting function, only the twelve oldest men of each town or the substitutes whom the ordinance assigns, have a vote. In some provinces the cabezas appoint only the three who have to compose the terna [i.e., three nominees for any office] for the gobernadorcillo. These, with the outgoing gobernadorcillo, proceed to the election of Page 326the deputies, alguacils, and their committees. The cabecerías [i.e., headships], much more ancient in origin than the reductions [i.e., native villages of converts], were doubtless hereditary. At present they are hereditary and elective. When they fall vacant, whether for want of an heir or through the resignation of the regularly appointed incumbent, the substitute is appointed—by the superintendent, in the provinces near the capital; and in those distant from it by the respective subdelegate chief, but at the proposal of the gobernadorcillo and other cabezas. This same plan is followed in the creation of any cabecería in proportion to the increase in population, and as the number of tributarios in each town demands it. The cabezas, their wives, and first-born sons (who are their assistants in the collection of the royal revenues), enjoy exemption from the payment of tribute. The cabezas in some provinces serve in the cabecerías for three years; and, if they do not prove defaulters, they are recognized as chiefs in the towns, with the titles of ex-cabeza and don. Such system offers the serious disadvantage of multiplying the privileged class of chiefs, which, being exempted from personal services, increases the tax for the common people or the polistas10 in proportion to the increase of the privileged class.