Audiencia of Manila

“ The most direct and striking consequence of the establishment of the audiencia in Manila was the discord which it engendered between the various officials and functionaries of the government. Whereas, before the inauguration of the tribunal, the chief ill of the colony had been the unrivaled absolutism and the high-handed proceedings of the governor, now, with the division of power newly effected, the creation of new departments, and the checking of one official against another, strife and contention took the place of despotism. ”

“ In the city of Manila, on the fifteenth of June, one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors of the royal Audiencia of the Philipinas Islands declared that they have been informed that it is customary to appoint as alcaldes-mayor, and to other offices of justice, some persons who have not undergone residencia for offices that they have held before, or who have not rendered account of the treasury fines and expenses of justice and war which have been in their charge ”

“ They never fail to have plenty to do there because of the entrance of so many strangers into those districts. However, this holy tribunal does not have jurisdiction of the causes pertaining to the natives, as the latter are so recently converted.
All these islands are subdued, and are governed from Manila by means of alcaldes-mayor, corregidors, and lieutenants, each of whom rules and administers justice in his own district and province. Appeals from their acts and sentences go to the royal Audiencia. The governor and captain-general provides what pertains to government and war. ”

“ The said royal Audiencia is the cause of the perversion of distributive justice. Dignities and offices are given to the unworthy and undeserving, thus causing those who have served his Majesty to complain.3 For the appointive offices and offices of dignity, both of war and of the districts of alcaldes-mayor, are given to the brothers, sons, or relatives of the said auditors. These are men without experience or merit. As a manifest and evident proof of this, it is not necessary to refer to the events of past years, but only to what is now current in this city of Manila. ”

“ In other letters of the same date, the governor urges at some length that the Audiencia at Manila should be abolished. The Spanish population is so small that the Audiencia has but little occupation; the auditors bring to the islands numerous relatives or friends, for whom they secure the offices and benefits which rightfully belong to the inhabitants; they appropriate the best of the Chinese trade and of its profits, compelling the citizens to stand aside ”

“ Therefore, there neither is nor can be wrong in such privileges, which are founded in justice and right, and there is no opposition between those which are pontifical and those which are royal, as there is not and cannot be any between the virtues. The fault is in those who interpret these privileges as they do the laws, for they say that they give their mind to them, as if they no longer had any mind, and were now mente captas.51... Excellent and learned officials were all the auditors who at that time were members of the Audiencia of Manila ”

“ It is decreed that they shall be charged no fee for leaving Manila; the sale of their goods is regulated; no oppression or injury to them shall be permitted; they shall not be allowed to live in the houses of Spaniards; their suits shall come first before the governor of the Parián, with appeal to the Audiencia, and that neither auditors nor municipal officials shall begin such suits; the Audiencia shall not meddle with the affairs of the Parián, which shall be in charge of the governor of the islands; and assessments of fowls shall not be made upon the Chinese. ”

“ Numerous protests were made during this early period against what was considered the unauthorized interference of the Mexican authorities. Those in Manila felt that inasmuch as they had an audiencia which was co-equal in power with that of New Spain, they should be independent of the viceroyalty in all the affairs of justice, government, and commerce.
The combined memorials of the residents and officials of Manila, which we have already noted, were presented at court by a new procurator, Fray Alonso Sánchez. ”

“ If it were not for the president and royal Audiencia, who restrain these acts of violence, this poor commonwealth would be separated by five thousand leguas from its real deliverance and father, who is your Majesty—whom may our Lord prosper, and increase his realm, according to the desire of us his faithful vassals. Dated in this your city of Manila ”

“ Not only from the Coromandel coast—on which the Manila trade had founded populous settlements, as Portonovo and Cololu—but from the city of Goa came ships almost every year, commerce little known [to Manila] before, and very remote. The governor devoted much attention to the sessions of the Audiencia and the obligations of his office, and thus the legal business which devolved upon that court was expedited, through the uprightness [183] and integrity of the auditors, Don Francisco Mansilla, Don Diego Calderón, and Don Diego de Viga; the last named filled the office of fiscal acceptably to all. ”

“ Whereas in the interests of good government and the administration of our justice, we have accorded the establishment in the city of Manila in the Island of Luzon of one of our royal audiencias and chanceries, in which there shall be a president, three oidores, a fiscal, and the necessary officials ”

“ Anda y Salazar,1 in a letter written from Bulacan, October 8, 1762, to the archbishop, Manuel Antonio Rojo del Rio y Vieyra, states that in accordance with his appointment by the latter as visitor-general of the provinces, he appoints the necessary persons for the performance of that duty, forms a court, and goes to Bulacan on October 4. There on presenting his credentials he is recognized by the alcalde-mayor José Pasarin. Manila is taken by assault by the British next day, and the president and auditors of the Audiencia remaining in the city are taken prisoners. ”

“ The audiencia also audited the accounts of the obras pías, though its jurisdiction over these funds was often opposed.86 [397] The chief foundations of the obras pías in Manila were the Santa Misericordia and San Juan de Diós. The wealth and power of the Misericordia became so great,87 and so well did it profit by the various immunities extended to it, that by the early part of the eighteenth century it had become the object of the distrust and envy of all classes of Manila society. ”

“ All natives residing in Manila who have not some employment are ordered to leave the city at three days' notice. The duties of the late Alvaro Çambrano, deceased, are to be assumed by others of the auditors. Provision is made for due inspection, appraisal, and sale of merchandise brought from China. All Indians belonging to the royal encomiendas must pay their tributes, even when they reside in Manila. The sum of three hundred pesos is appropriated to furnish and adorn the chapel of the Audiencia. The Chinese are forbidden to have godchildren, a practice which has led to many evils ”

“ The especial object of such visitation is to confiscate any books condemned by the Inquisition which may be conveyed by the ships. Doubtful cases are left to the commissary’s discretion, since he is at so great a distance from Mexico.
Another valuable document is the decree which provides (May 5, 1583) for the establishment and conduct of a royal Audiencia (high court of justice) in Manila. Provision is made for a house wherein [13] this court shall sit, and for its powers and the scope of its jurisdiction ”

“ They also ask for royal bounty in its aid. The Dominicans at Manila, on the same day, memorialize the home government for the suppression of the Audiencia in the islands. They claim that the royal decrees are not obeyed as they should be. The royal fiscal is accused of illegal traffic, and the opportunities and means of profit are given to relatives Page 14or friends of the auditors. ”

“ I am conscious that history will judge the achievements of this Government and the usefulness of democracy not through the narrow perspective of the business centers in Manila, but by our success in making a better future for all Filipinos. It is in the fields and barrios, in the slums of our cities, that we will ultimately be judged. ”

“ The highly centered bureaucracy of the Philippine government is one without precedent in our own country, and without any fitness for the Philippines or any other colony. The slight self-government given to the Filipinos is merely enough to call attention to that which is refused them. No successful government of these Islands, either by our country or by the Filipinos themselves, will ever be secured while all questions of government for so many diverse races are settled by a few high government officials at the capital—Manila. ”

“ Rarely is it that one leaves his alcaldeship without having paid many fines. The Filipinos make the greatest ado, as is natural, over those triumphs against authority, but authority loses decorum and moral force. All this comes from the bad system established, for, since the governor from the moment that he becomes a merchant, must be a bad governor and a usurer and tyrant, the government of Manila is predisposed against his acts, and declares itself the protector of the Filipinos. ”

“ There are some very estimable men among us who think that even if we concede to the islanders their independence, we should at least keep the city of Manila. I think differently, not from a mere impulse of generosity, but from an entirely practical point of view. Manila is the traditional, if not the natural capital of the archipelago. To recognize the independence of the Philippine Islanders, and at the same time to keep from them Manila, would mean as much as to recognize the independence of Cuba and to keep Havana. ”

“ Here he bethought him of an old friend, and succeeded in finding a man he well knew he could trust, despite his mother's old dislike for him, a man who knew his whole past, of his desertion, of his danger,—a man who was himself about enlisting for service in the Philippines, and who persuaded him that his surest way to win exemption from punishment was to hasten after the detachment, beat it, if possible, to Manila, and join it there at his own expense. ”

“ He was one of the excellent, and even of the best, official judges that Manila has had—very conscientious, with much fear of God, and very disinterested, which is a great virtue in one who is a judge; and therefore he [136] always remained poor, contenting himself with the income which he received from the royal treasury (which is three thousand pesos) , and even from that he gave much in alms. ”

“ The few gazettes that are published at Manila are entirely under the control of the government; and a resident of that city must make up his mind to remain in ignorance of the things that are passing around him, or believe just what the authorities will allow to be told, whether truth or falsehood. The government of the Philippines is emphatically an iron rule ”

“ We walk in the ways of the fathers when we go conquering and to conquer along the Eastward shores of Asia.
One of the expanding and teeming questions before the world now, and the authority and ability to determine it, is in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the United States, is whether Manila shall become an American city, with all the broad and sweeping significance attaching thereto. Manila was not dressed for company when I saw her, for she had just emerged from a siege in which the people had suffered much inconvenience and privation. ”

“ I went for a little drive yesterday evening, through the old Spanish Intramuros, the Walled City, within the high old walls, which stand in a neglected moat, and are all covered with moss and grass and trailing weeds. The narrow streets are cobbled, and the quaint houses, with deep, barred basement windows, have a delightful air of repose, after the half-finished, skin-deep, hustling modernity of Americanised Manila. The whole quarter seems a far more appropriate setting than the rest of the town for the “mild-eyed lotus eaters,” which the Filipinos really are by choice, nature, and instinct. ”

“ The Bishop, who had some disagreement with the Governor, feeling the importance of the Royal Audience, as the only tribunal capable of curbing the power of the Governor, and persuading himself it was not safe, to trust in the hands of one man, the uncontrolled [185] exercise of authority, in a country so remote from the seat of government, it was his intention to proceed to New Spain, with a view to procure the re-establishment of the Royal Audience in Manila, and on various, affairs of his bishopric. ”

“ This boast is true of Manila, and of Manila alone amongst all the colonies of Spain or the other European states. If the natives of Manila have been more fortunate than those of Cuba, Peru, Jamaica, and Mexico, it has been owing to the absence of gold, which in other places attracted adventurers so lawless that neither the Church nor Courts of justice could restrain them."
It is against the orders named as worthy exalted praise that the insurgents are most inflamed, and whose expulsion from the islands is certain in case of Philippine jurisdiction. ”

“ That is what America has done to the Philippines."
"If the city of Manila could, by some genius of modern times, be laid down in Europe and ticketed, labeled, bill-posted and guide-booked, it would be famous," says one authority. The city contains an area of more than fifteen square miles and is more densely populated per mile of street than New York. When civil government was established in 1901 the conditions were deplorable. The streets were narrow and filthy and there was no sewer system to speak of. The river and dirty canals divided and subdivided the city. ”