Note 7 — REPRESENTATION OF FILIPINAS IN THE SPANISH CORTES

In January, 1813, after recommendation by the committee on Ultramar, it was resolved to grant the petition of the board (mesa) of the Misericordia of Manila (which had been hanging fire in the Cortes since September 25, 1812), asking for certain reforms, among them that the number of persons voting for the electors of the board itself be reduced.7 On January 6, 1813, the proposed ordinances for the hospice for the poor at Manila (the establishment of which was provided for by royal order of December 27, 1806), were declared unconstitutional by the committee on Ultramar,8 and that committee’s report was adopted. A minute in the records of March 11, 1813, shows that the suppression of the brandy monopoly had been decreed by the governor of the Philippines and that it could be manufactured freely in the provinces of Tondo, Cavite, Bulacan, and Pampanga.