Note 7 — Character and Influence of the Friars

In respect to their pride and ambition to govern, all men have that, for this is our most powerful instinct; and the priests of all times and countries have had it. The royal decrees and the articles of which we have spoken demonstrate quite clearly that those of Filipinas have not escaped from falling into this sin. Up to a certain point, one can affirm that the civil government itself—or, to speak more accurately, circumstances—have placed them in a position where they must take part in the temporal administration. In a whole province, there is no other Spaniard in authority except the alcalde-mayor, and he never knows a word of the idiom of the country (see my remarks on] the administration of justice). Hence it necessarily arises that the alcalde-mayor does not know more than the natives allow him to know; and that the gobernadorcillos of the villages are masters, inasmuch as in everything they do whatever they think proper. In order to obviate these inconveniences, scarcely is any document asked in which the government does not require the supervision of the cura; and in this way it obliges him to be acquainted with matters quite at variance with his ministry. The cura possesses the language, resides in the village, has the means of the confessional,7 and when he wishes there are but few matters, even the most trivial, that can be hidden from him. On the contrary the alcalde, not having any of these advantages, can have knowledge of but few things, if the parish priest does not communicate them. I shall quote here what father Fray Manuel del Rio says on this point. “Although the temporal government of the village that he administers does not belong to the obligation of the minister of souls, but it may, on the contrary, be prejudicial to his obligation and ministry for him to meddle too much in this; yet on certain occasions it is necessary for the minister to put his shoulder to the wheel so that the village may be well governed—now by directing the gobernadorcillos in its employ, now by encouraging them and giving them zeal and energy and courage in certain decisions which they, through their cowardice, do not dare to make unless an order or command proceed from the minister; now also by restraining the audacity of the greater against the less, in order to prevent the annoyances that the chiefs practice upon their cailianes8—thereby protecting the cause of the wretched, which is one of the duties that the council of Trent (in the place cited at the beginning of this work), commits to those who are ministers of souls.