Note 122 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos

54. This worst of customs is very prejudicial and troublesome to the Spaniards and to the father ministers. For it might happen that one has one servant (or all) who wastes and destroys the property of his master, and there is [no one] who will tell him what is passing.122 But if it happens that the wasteful servant leave, then all the others tell what he did; and, whatever is lacking afterward, they throw the blame on that absent servant. If the Spaniard reprove the servant whom he most esteems and benefits, asking him why he did not tell of the evil that the other servant was doing, he replies with great dudgeon that they must not accuse him of being mabibig, or talebearer of what happens. This is what takes place, even if the servants know that they are flaying their master. Consequently, the first thing that they do when any new servant comes is, to threaten him if he turn mabibig, and afterwards make him do all the work that belongs to them all, while the old servants are quite free from toil. Hence the fewer servants a Spaniard has, the better served will he be; for only the newcomer works and does everything, and the others not only do nothing, but are all served by him.123