Note 16 — INTERNAL POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1842

The most pernicious and transcendental fault into which many curas have fallen especially for some time back—a fault ten times more harmful than the one to which we have referred—is that of avarice, fed by the practice of trading. It is well known that the mode of trading in that country usually consists in usury, that is, in advancing money in order later to receive products in kind at a very low price. And even leaving aside this aspect of the matter, it happens, as is natural, that the minister, as soon as he has become a speculator, contrives to get some profit from his position, and from the influence which his ministry and the policy indispensable in that country give him, and thinks little or nothing of the means so long as they conduce to the increase of his capital. Sometimes this vice is united with the first, and the stewardess or her husband—who is generally one of the servants of the convent, whom the friar has married to her, in order to save appearances—is charged with the gathering, magazines, shops, sales, etc. But it must be confessed that the government has had a great part in this corruption, by protecting the religious against their superiors. Two left during the term of General Lardizabal, taking a large amount with them. When the Augustinian provincial, Father Grijalvo, went with his secretary, Father Fausto Lopez, to see him [i.e., Lardizabal] about one of them (Father Jarava)16 who wished to go away with his money, and said provincial asserted to him that this was a very bad example, as there were many who would devote their energies to making money, and then leave, although religious are so necessary in these islands, the said general answered him: “Do not believe it. You are not so necessary. You are deceived in this. The English government in India has no friars, and yet that country is sustained and prospers.” Nevertheless, in Singapor, he [i.e., Father Jarava] boasted in conversation with the good Bishop Courvery (as the latter mentioned to me) of the gold which he carried; and told him of the presents which he had had to bestow in Manila in order to obtain his passport, especially to the assessor of the government. The most illustrious bishop wrote that to that capital, and on learning it, the guileless general Lardizabal was angry enough to tear his hair, as was mentioned by the secretary of the government, Cambronero.17 In 1840 they went to inform the alcalde-mayor of a province that all those who went away with indigo, unless provided with a pass by the cura, were detained in the bantayan (a kind of sentry-box) of a village in his jurisdiction. The alcalde ordered the matter to be investigated, and found it to be so; and some passes were brought to him, which stated little more or less than “permit So-and-so to pass with so many quintals of indigo.” The reason for this was that the cura had advanced money to them, and feared that if they carried away the indigo and sold it, it would afterward be impossible to collect the money. The alcalde ordered a verbal process to be formulated, in which two friars and two secular priests made their depositions in the most effective terms against the cura in question. [The alcalde-mayor wrote to the vicar of the province, who answered him under date of Batac, July 25, 1840, to the effect that the freedom given by the government to the friars, who had been relieved of obedience to their prelates, accounted for this. The government and the ideas of the present time were to blame, consequently, not the friar prelates. The friar of whom the alcalde-mayor and the vicar wrote boasted that when he was attacked on the one side he took refuge in the jurisdiction of the other. Although he boasted that he intended to take his 40,000 pesos and enjoy life with a female companion, yet he obtained governmental permission to remain in his curacy.] The curas generally suffer from another defect, namely, that of meddling in temporal matters, or rather, of endeavoring to abrogate all jurisdictions, and then assume these in themselves. It is evident that there must be a limit to everything, and that those friars who display an insolent spirit and are usurpers of command must restrain themselves within limits. But this evil is one of the least, if our chief and vital object be considered to be the conservation of the state. Is it or not a fact that, for España to maintain this colony under its dominion, it needs the influence of the religious over the inhabitants? If it is a fact, one must consider these persons as instruments; their influence must be positive; the alcaldes and other employes must be wheels of the machine, who must be in communication with them, and to a certain point move at their impulse. So long as the villages obey the voice of the friars, the islands will be Spanish, for the friars can do no less than be so. Emancipation would inevitably cause their ruin. This will appear hard and unendurable to many who are not friends of theoretic intervention, especially among the present military and civil officers of Filipinas; but I understand it in this way, and do not see by what other agency a handful of Spaniards can, at six thousand leguas’ distance, and without Spanish troops, keep obedient a vast and wealthy country, which has need of us for nothing, in which there are not a few elements of independence, and which is coveted by many foreign nations.