Note 4 — Ecclesiastical Survey of the Philippines

There is not, properly speaking, a tribunal of the Inquisition at Manila, but only a commissary of the Holy Office, appointed to this place by the tribunal of Mexico. He is the chief or superior of all the other commissaries scattered throughout the provinces. It is worthy of remark that the fathers of the Society had a private and special commissary, who was always a secular priest. The office of commissary-superintendent has always been filled in the convent of the Jacobins [i.e., Dominicans]. There has been only one interruption, of seven years, during which a father of the convent of the Augustinians had the commission, because the Jacobin father who was then commissary was deposed, as we were told, for having unjustly brought suit against the governor of Manila, and having had him arrested.4