Note 27 — EARLY FRANCISCAN MISSIONS

Marcos de Lisboa, preacher, was born in Lisboa, Portugal, of noble parents, who sent him to engage in the Indian commerce at an early age, he taking up his residence at Malaca. He took the Franciscan habit in that city in 1582, and went to the Philippines in 1586, where he projected the foundation of the Santa Misericordia in Manila and contributed to its establishment in 1594. Later he went to Camarines where he had charge of the villages of Polangui and Oás. He was elected definitor and minister of Naga in 1602, and went to Oás in 1605. In the chapter of May 24, 1608, he was again elected definitor, and January 16, 1609, he was elected vicar-provincial, governing until October 29, 1611, during which time the missions to the province of Ituy were founded. At the end of his term he was elected guardian of Naga, and in 1616 was elected definitor for the third time and minister of Dilao. He went to Mexico in 1618, and having been appointed custodian for the general chapter of July 16, 1622, he went to Madrid and thence to Rome. At the conclusion of the chapter he retired to the convent of San Gil in Madrid, where he died at the beginning of 1628. He left a number of writings in the Bícol dialect. See Huerta, pp. 447, 448.