Note 5 — Events in Filipinas, 1686–88

On account of a ranch which the college of San Ignacio at Manila possesses in the land of Meybonga, not far from the said city—its name being Jesus de la Peña, or Mariquina—the Society began to administer the sacraments, establishing the mission village of Mariquina, or Jesus de la Peña, by authority from Don Fray Pedro de Arce, bishop of Zebù and apostolic ruler of the archbishopric of Manila, on April 16, 1630; this was confirmed by the vice-patron, Don Juan Niño de Tabora, governor of these islands, on April 22, 1630. The said village was cared for by the minister stationed in Santa Cruz, or by a father sent by the rector of the college of Manila, who was the director of the said village; for this no stipend was asked from his Majesty, because the minister was not permanently established there, and therefore the said college maintained him, without suspending, for lack of a stipend, the ministry in the said village. In the year 1675, the Society was confirmed in this administration by a royal decree, dated July 26, on account of the Society’s right to the said parish having been disputed by the religious of St. Augustine, from November, 1669. In 1681, the number of parishioners having increased, it was judged necessary to station a permanent minister there, for the better administration of the sacraments, and to build a house and a larger church; and, as it was thus necessary to incur larger expenses, the Society asked, in 1685, that to this minister be given the stipend which his Majesty assigns to the parish priests, in accordance with the number of tributes. The fiscal of his Majesty replied that in view of what the Society was accomplishing there, a suitable stipend should be given. In the year 1686, the religious of St. Augustine claimed that that Indian village belonged to them, as an annex to the ministry of Pasig. The archbishop issued an act, on October 11, 1686, in which, while admitting as valid the sacraments administered by the Society, he took from all its religious permission to minister in Jesus de la Peña; and on March 10, 1687, he declared that the lawful parish priest of the mission of Jesus de la Peña was the prior of Pasig, a religious of St. Augustine. In this spoliation concurred also, through complaisance, the governor Don Gabriel Curuzelaegui, who on March 23 of the said year decreed that Don Juan Pimentel, alcalde of Tondo, should begin proceedings against the Society in the mission of Jesus de la Peña, as the king commanded; and that he should assist the provisor in tearing down our church—which he did, commanding the Indians to demolish that temple. “What obedience! the monster of the Indias, an unnatural birth of remoteness, of power, and of prejudice.” (Murillo Velarde, Hist. de Philipinas, fol. 345 b.)