Note 26 — INTERNAL POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1842

Whatever difficulty occurs in the fulfilment of an order, it must be solved by means of a conference and advice [consulta],26 from which a reply is not obtained until from twelve to fourteen months. These difficulties are more frequent in Filipinas than in a province of the Peninsula, because of the lack of knowledge of the country generally possessed by the ministers who dictate the measures. Things have gone so far that it has been ordered that the cultivation of the balate (a fish) be encouraged; and that the situado of Zamboanga be sent overland, because of the loss of the ship which was carrying it across to the island of Mindanao, where D. Infantes was then governing said presidio. The superintendent Enriquez says in the document which he printed on leaving his post in 1836,27 that in the short period in which he filled the superintendency, he sent to the court six hundred and twenty-seven questions for resolution. And to these springs of torpor in the administration of the government, we must add that the captains-general scarcely decide any question whatever, without handing the matter for report to the assessor, fiscal, Audiencia, etc., because of the distance and impossibility of consulting España, and through their fear of compromising themselves, since on many occasions, measures have been obtained against them in Madrid, through agents and representatives or through complaints sent from the islands. The same thing happens with regard to the intendant and other authorities. From this practice arises the system of expedientes28 which reigns, and which is so fatal to the prosperity and good government of the country, since very often the arrangement that appears good to some, is contrary to the opinions or interests of others. [Expedientes lasting for years have been formulated for matters requiring immediate attention. For instance, one lasting for years was formulated in regard to an expedition against the Moro pirates. An expediente is formed when a foreigner arrives at Manila without a passport from Spain and asks permission to remain in the country, although the law on this point is explicit. Thus much valuable time is lost and the expedientes result in only a waste of paper, besides great injury to the islands. The governor often has to conform to the opinions expressed in the expediente, although he knows they will be the cause of injustice.29 On the other hand, the governor is often directly at fault, because he enforces his own opinion on his assessor, who has often obtained his position through favoritism and is not a lawyer, and decides questions according to the will of the governor. Besides, the governor has the armed force at his disposal. The chiefs of the various departments at Manila carry on correspondence with the directors-general of their respective departments in Madrid, without the knowledge of the governor, a fact that increases the confusion and disorder. The director of the mails even is at fault in this, and renders accounts to the general post-office department in Spain.] A sub-inspector of engineers newly created, just went to Manila with orders to extend the fortifications of the capital to its suburbs. The suburbs contain about fifty thousand inhabitants scattered throughout various villages which are composed of houses all of one story in height, which is enough to give an idea of the extension of the imagined fortification. The amount of artillery for garrisoning their walls, the workshop necessary to keep the artillery in good condition, the garrison necessary for their defense, besides the operating gangs: all were to be in the greatest magnitude, and demand an annual expense which the treasury of the colony could not even remotely meet. And if one reflect that the enemy can take all the other islands and even disembark at any point of Luzon itself without the necessity of going to Manila; that if this capital were besieged, it would be by enemies coming by sea, and hence, being masters of the port, they would very quickly take by hunger a place of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, or indeed it would be surrendered by the natives, and then the inhabitants, instead of contributing to the defense, would open their doors to the aggressors; and that the concentration of the forces, the property, the archives, and public and private wealth, at one single enclosed point, is to form a target to call the attention of exterior and interior enemies: we can do no less than agree that the plan of extending the fortifications of Manila to all its suburbs lacks all reasonable foundation, and that it will be advocated only by the many people who possess houses on the shores of the Pasig River, within cannon range, because of their fear lest, if the events of 1762 are again repeated, all those edifices which they were by a fatal lack of foresight permitted to raise successively (an evil which it is now very difficult if not impossible to remedy), would be leveled to the ground.