The document discusses the power dynamics between Spanish friars and colonial authorities in the Philippines. It notes that the friars accumulated significant economic and political power through land ownership and their role in the administration. This led to conflicts with governors who wanted to assert their authority, including Governor Fernando Bustamante who had the archbishop imprisoned and was later killed in a mob led by friars. The document also discusses tensions over taxation of the local population and violations of indigenous rights.

1. Who reigned and who ruled?
Mitschek, Ariane B.
BSE-ENG1A

3.  Subsequent increase in prestige and material wealth.
 Lowering of standards- Intellectually and morally.
 Real possibility of getting materially rich.
 The unusual combination power of the friars and
principalia, made the friar the principal figure and the
church the de facto dominant institution in the country.
 With the friars economic power, indispensable role in civil
administration, and spiritual authority the friars assume a
more prominent role than would be seemly for the
demands of a spiritual life.

5. The friars
complained the
abuses in the
encomienda
system
 Friars
complaint
were often
seen as
self-
serving
Governor-General
Gomez Perez
Dasmariñas felt
the friars were
using the
alleged abuses
to highlight
what they
believed to be
their own
superior
qualifications

6.  The friars complained about the abuses of the
encomenderos. Including the encomenderos’
withholding the friars’ fair share of the tributes-to the
colonial government and to the king.

8. The declaration of
this constitution,
convened by first
Bishop of Manila,
Domingo de
Salazar, easily
and subsequently
disregarded.
The
constitution
is resolutely
anti-colonial

9. Domingo de Salazar
 first Bishop of Manila
 He convened a council of clerics in 1582. The
council declared that sovereignty and
adjudication “by natural right belong to the
Indios and neither the King nor the Pope can
take it away from them.”

10.  By 1698, the
Manila
Archbishop
had to forbid
the exaction
of fees for the
performance
of the
sacraments
The
archbishop
found the
charging of
fee to hear a
confession
uncommon
His order
prohibiting
this
practice
was ignored

11. According to Onofre D. Corpuz book, The Roots of the Filipino Nation,
“this had been the practice of the Spanish friars and curates since the early
days of Hispanic Christianity in Filipinas. Previous orders prohibiting this
practice…were ignored.”

13. The friars were
aided by the
pricipalia,
agents of the
Spanish
colonial
apparatus,
took
advantage to
the
privatization
of property.
Principalia
were able
to acquire
individual
and legal
titles to
land
Having the
position
and
privilege,
the friars
were able
to
manipulate
state affairs

14. Estate-owning
friar orders
Land-owning
principalia
Local populace
(consisting mainly of
tenant farmers and
agricultural laborers)

16. Governor General
Fernando
Bustamante
found out that
the friars had
borrowed
heavily from the
government
and from the
obras pias.
Bustamante
demanded
repayment of
loans and to,
assert his
authority, had
the archbishop
imprisoned on
charges of
having
conspired
against the
government.
In 1719, he was
slain by a mob
led by friars,
who stormed
at the palace,
overpowered
the guard, and
knifed the
governor and
his son to
death.

17. Governor-General Fernando
Bustamante
•Activist governor
•A military commander of high rank and
first such to be appointed governor
general of the Philippines

18. Once Hurtado
stepped down,
the clergy
insisted he be
brought to court
and punished.
He was found
guilty and
imprisoned for
five years before
finally being
freed by royal
order.
Francisco de Nava
had knifed his
female ex-slave in
front of the
church for
refusing to marry
him. After he was
found guilty of
murder, he was
hanged at the
gallows erected
right across the
church.
Officials of the archdiocese
requested the release of
the prisoner and his
return to directly in front
of the church where Nava
had claimed sanctuary.
The same day the
archbishop ordered an
interdict and the church,
but the governor refused
to see them. The sentence
was soon carried out
(September 6, 1635), on a
specially built gallows
suspension of religious
services.

19. Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, Spanish
governor of the Philippines, 1635-44

20. Hernando Guerrero, Archbishop of
Manila, Philippines (1635-1641))

21.  It wasn’t as though the civil authorities themselves
were models of democratic behavior and restraint.
They were no less exploitative.
 The Guardia Civil, was much feared by the local
populace for their often arbitrary and abusive behavior.

22. Extracting the most profit out of the colony turned
into a pierce albeit unofficial competition between two
rival spheres.