or in the vast majority of their individual members, that they have
prevaricated; that they have ever abandoned the duties entrusted to
them in the administration of the sacraments, in the celebration
of divine worship, in Christian preaching and catechising, in the
vigilance of good manners, in the tutelage of moral interests, in
protection and relief to the needy and weak, in advice and consolation
to all about us, in the maintenance of obedience to the mother-country,
in the extension of education, in the campaign against every kind of
superstition and erroneous practice, in repression of concubinage, and
of other public irregularities and scandals? Does not the tenet enter
the head of the most exalted sectarian, if he has any lucid moment,
that we religious have fulfilled with assiduous self-abnegation the
obligations of our ministry?
We have become wearied with reading, your Excellency, whatever has
been written and published against us for years, and we know also how
much is said now in assemblies and gatherings. With our hand upon our
heart, with our foreheads raised aloft, as one who walks in the light
and fears not to have his deeds examined and discussed in the light,
we challenge and defy our detractors and calumniators, and those
who flippantly, or by any other unjust and inaccurate motive, talk
and murmur, to show us with exact data and with perfectly authentic
information, not only the accuracy of all their accusations, but
the mere probability of whatever they allege against our honor and
well-established credit, touching the fulfilment of our duties,
both religious and patriotic.
Their procedure in respect to parochial obventions, to education,
and intercourse with intelligent persons. It is said that we commit
abuse in the exaction of parochial fees. Let the laws of the Church be
consulted, let the doctrines of the moralists and the principles of
positive natural and divine law be cited; and then submitted to that
only sure rule as a criterion, let them tell us whether we abuse the
public in that matter, and whether our procedure, within just bounds,
is not that employed by the most disinterested priests.
It is said that we are hostile to education and the advancement
of knowledge. But if by education and knowledge, doctrines not
condemned by the Church, our Mother, are not meant, let them tell us
whether the islands have any education that has not been established,
protected, sustained, and encouraged by the clergy, in all branches
of instruction, both primary, and secondary and superior.
It is said that we despise the intelligent men of the country, and that
we make them the object of every kind of persecution. That assertion is
so rare and stupendous that we wonder whether our enemies will write in
imaginary spaces. A multitude of youths are graduated annually with the
degree of bachelor or after the conclusion of some higher course, from
the Ateneo Municipal, from the colleges of Manila and the provinces,
and from the university. We are honored by the friendship of the
vast majority of them, and take no little satisfaction in seeing
them prosper and in knowing that they respect the Christian and
solid education that they have received. It is known that very few
of the great number of students that attend our lecture halls, and
of the not few graduates that are scattered throughout the islands,
have taken part in the rebellion; and that the vast majority of them
have kept loyal to España, in fulfilment of the oath that they took
on receiving the investiture of their professions. But what happens
in the old world with the apprentices of free thought happens here:
all those modestly call themselves intelligent who think that they
exhibit signs of knowledge and talent by showing contempt for priests
and religious; while it is a fact that a goodly proportion of those
who express themselves in that manner have been unable to complete
their courses with us, and are the refuse of our lecture halls.
Regarding the sanctity of their private life. An outcry is being made
against the vices and immorality of the regulars in terms that seem to
be inspired in Protestant and anticlerical centers of low quality. But
in that, as in other things, saving what can never be avoided even in
the communities most sanely organized, by the severest legislation
and the most exquisite care, all who view us near at hand are not
ignorant that nothing can be thrown into our face.
The words of Father St. Augustine, when defending his institute against
accusations similar to those directed against the orders of Filipinas,
are very opportune and efficacious in this matter. "Tell me, brethren,
is my congregation, peradventure, better than Noah's ark, in which,
of the three sons Noah had, one was evil? Is it, peradventure, better
than the family of the patriarch Jacob, in which, of his twelve sons,
only Joseph is praised? Is it, peradventure, better than the house of
the patriarch Isaac, in which, of the two sons born to him, one was
chosen of God, and the other damned? Is it, peradventure, better than
the household of Jesus Christ, our Savior, in which, of His twelve
apostles, one was a traitor, and sold him? Is it, peradventure, better
than that company of the seven deacons filled with the Holy spirit,
chosen by the apostles to take charge of the poor and widowed, among
whom one, by name Nicholas, became a heresiarch? Is it, peradventure,
better than heaven itself, whence fell so many angels? Can it be
better than the earthly paradise, where the two first parents of all
the human race, created in original justice and grace, fell?"
Ah! the religious corporations of Filipinas, caring for the sanctity
and salvation of all its sons, on seeing one of their individual
members fail in his duties, after correcting him, and after taking,
in accordance with law and religious prudence, measures efficacious
to repair, if he did it, the scandal, and even, if necessary, to
destroy and fling aside the rotten branch, cry out in pity with the
apostle like a true mother: "Quis infirmatur et ego non infirmor? Quis
scandalizatur et ego non uror?" "Who becomes sick spiritually and I do
not suffer with him? Who suffers scandal and I am not burned?" That is
what all should say who learn of the backslidings of their neighbor;
that is the dictate of charity and of justice; that is demanded by
respect and consideration to the ministers of the church. And so long
as our systematic accusers do not prove that the orders consent and
do not check the sins, in great part humanly inevitable--considering
the conditions under which those dedicated to the ministry live--of
the very few religious who have the misfortune and weakness to fall,
they have no right to dishonor us and to cry out against what we are
the first to lament and to try to correct.
Will they prove it sometime? We are quite assured of the opposite;
and that though they have at hand, as many methods of inquisition
and proof as the judge most interested in any cause can desire. Our
convents, our ministries, our persons, are in sight of all. Our parish
priests and missionaries are alone and surrounded by a multitude of
natives. Whatever we say, do, or neglect to do, is seen and spied
by all the people. Our habitations are of crystal for all classes
of people. Our publicity as Europeans and our condition as priests
place us in such relief in the missions and parishes, that it would be
stupid simplicity to try to hide our doings and actions. Consequently,
everything is favorable to our adversaries in the trial to which we
provoke them, and to which each regular voluntarily submits himself,
from the moment that, faithful to his vocation and obedient to his
superiors, he sacrifices himself to live among these natives, his very
beloved sheep of the flock of Christ. Our honor, our reputation rests
in their hands. It would be easy for our adversaries to confound the
religious institutes if truth presided over their accusations. But
since truth is that which does not glitter in their words, the saying
of Holy Writ becomes verified in their conduct: "They spake against me
with a lying tongue, and with the speech of hate did they attack me;"
and in regard to us the saying of St. Peter: "You shall keep an upright
conscience with modesty and fear, so that as many as calumniate your
upright procedure in Christ, shall be confounded." [201]
Other equally unjust charges. We shall not compare our conduct
with that of the respectable and very estimable native priests of
the secular clergy, whom the majority of the separatist Filipinos
flatter, undoubtedly because it is not to the purpose of their plans
to combat them. We shall not rebut the shamelessness of supposing that
part of our property has a criminal origin, and that we are certain
despots in our rural estates who suck the blood of our tenants by
various methods, an infamy so often refuted with authentic data
of overwhelming proof. We shall not speak of the vast imposture of
imputing to us all the executions by shooting, imprisonments, tortures,
trials, and confiscation of property of those implicated in the last
insurrection. We scorn the absurd fable that we are absolute masters,
not only of consciences, but of all the archipelago, at the same time
that they, obviously contradicting themselves, as error is wont to do,
declare that our prestige and influence in the islands is lost. We
neglect to attribute to ourselves whatever hate and censure, according
to them, have been made in the country by the military [institutos
armados], the governors, the judges, and all the public organisms, in
deportations and other kinds of punishment; as if we religious managed
to our liking the machine of the government and administration of this
territory, and as if, from the governor-general down to the last agent
of the police, all were but the blind executors of our will. We lay
aside those and other things--poorly executed arguments--which certain
misguided sons of this country are still employing, and which are
unfortunately repeated by certain peninsulars, in order to manifest
their hatred or prejudice against the clergy; and pass on to speak
of the insurrection and of the imperious necessity of remedying the
extremely embarrassing situation of the religious corporations in
the archipelago.
Fundamental causes of the insurrection, and who are to blame for
it. The government is able only too well to recognize the causes that
have produced the insurrection, and we shall not be the ones who try
to give it lessons in that regard. The government is aware that until
several years ago, every separatist idea, every rebel tendency in the
country, which was enjoying the most enviable peace and felt respect to
authority with the same unreflecting, although patent and holy, force,
with which domestic authority in all parts is obeyed and respected,
was exotic and an anachronism. Then was submission to España and
subordination to all authority an element truly social, rendered
incarnate by the religious in the mass of the Filipino population,
which neither dreamed, yea, your Excellency, neither dreamed of ideas
of political redemption, nor imagined that, in order to keep themselves
loyal to the mother-country, one single bayonet was necessary in the
country. The public force of the cuadrilleros and of the guardia civil
[202] (the latter of very recent creation) was necessarily created to
check and restrain thieves and tulisanes; [203] while every one thought
that the wretched army then in the archipelago had no other object than
to combat Mindanaos and Joloans, and to be ready for any conflict with
the neighboring powers. España was able to be sure of its dominion
here, and to live so carelessly, with respect to political movements
as in the most retired village of the Peninsula. All authority was
obeyed, was respected, by conscience, by education, by tradition,
by social habit, passively and by custom, if one wishes, but with
so great strength and firmness, with so indisputable and universal
submission, that more indeed than individual virtue it was the virtue
of the mass of the whole population, it was the spontaneous homage
to God, which, represented in the powers of the fatherland, all felt
and practiced, not conceiving even the possibility of rebellions
and insurrections. Thus had they been taught by the religious, who
always unite the names of God and His Church with the names of their
king and of España. Consequently, by bonds of conscience, did all the
archipelago love and obey him, and no one thought then of political
liberties, nor in lifting yokes that existed for no one.
Are there then no abuses? No, your Excellency it could have very well
happened that there were abuses on a greater scale than in the epoch
immediately preceding the present events. But since these people
were educated in the doctrine that it is never legal to disobey
authority, under pretext of abuses, even if some are true; since
these people had not yet been imbued with the new modern teachings,
condemned a hundred times by the Church; since no one had spoken
here of popular rights, many of them as false as senseless; since
the propaganda against priests and religious had not yet reached
Filipinas: it resulted that, considering those abuses, as one of so
many plagues of humanity (from which regulated societies are not free,
according to the principles of the newest erroneous law, but rather
they are, on the contrary, suffered with greater intensity and with
greater loss to the fundamental interests of the social order) these
inhabitants tolerated them patiently, and had recourse for their
remedy to the just methods taught in such cases by Catholic ethics,
with the greatest advantage to individuals and to nations.
Consequently, as many as have contributed, in one way or another,
to introduce those revolutionary doctrines, and those germs of social
and political disturbance into the archipelago, whether peninsulars or
islanders, of whatever class or rank, are the true authors, conscious
or unconscious, of the great weakening of the traditional obedience
to the mother-country, of which the whole archipelago was in peaceful
possession until thirty years ago, that was disturbed by no one or by
no influence. The introducers of those doctrines and tendencies are
beyond all doubt the culprits of the insurrection, for they are the
ones who have done their utmost to prepare for it and with success to
unroll it, even supposing that they have not directly and deliberately
procured it.
Who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind; who introduces principles
must accept the consequences; who generates hate must not wonder that
war results; who teaches the pathway of evil cannot declare himself
free from responsibility for the disorders originated by his teaching.
Partial causes: masonry. Will it be necessary to explain this simple
consideration? We do not think so. But should we desire to unfold it,
it would be easy for us to add that the anti-religious propaganda;
the ideas of erroneous liberty and forbidden independence, incited
and aroused in certain Filipinos by European politicians and writers;
the antipathy and opposition, clearly shown by certain Spaniards, even
by those ruling and by government employees, against the religious
corporations; the establishment of masonry and of other secret
societies, the former's legitimate offspring; the most favorable
reception that the revolutionary Filipinos found for their plans
in many centers and papers of Madrid and other places; the lack of
religion in many peninsulars; the ease with which the ancient laws
of Filipinas have been changed; the mobility of public functionaries
which, giving opportunity for many irregularities, has contributed
greatly to the continual lessening of the credit of the Spanish name;
and in part, the backwardness, which has been observed sometimes in
the sons of the country with regard to public appointments: [all
these] are partial aspects, various phases and confluent factors
(of which we do not attempt to enumerate all) of the fundamental and
synthetical cause that we have expressed.
No one is unaware that the chief of all those partial phases and
factors of the social disorganization of the archipelago has been
masonry. The Asociación Hispano-Filipina of Madrid was masonic. Those
who encouraged the Filipinos in their campaign against the clergy
and against the peninsulars here resident, were masons in almost
their totality. Those who authorized the installation of lodges in
the archipelago were masons. Those who founded the Katipunan, [204]
a society so mortally masonic, that even in its terrible suggestive
pact of blood it has done naught but imitate the masonic carbonarios,
were masons.
Practical consequences of that. The traditional submission to the
fatherland, diffused and deeply settled in the archipelago by the
religious corporations, having disappeared in part and having been
greatly weakened in part; the voice of the parish priest, thanks to the
above-mentioned propaganda, having been disregarded by many natives,
especially in Manila and conterminous provinces, who were taught in
that way to give themselves airs as intelligent and independent men;
the prestige of the Spanish name having been greatly tempered, and the
ancient respect with which every peninsular was formerly regarded in
the islands having been almost annihilated in many towns: is it strange
that race instincts should have asserted themselves strongly, and,
considering that they have a distinct language, and distinct lands and
climate, that they should have discussed and have attempted to raise
a wall of separation between Spaniards and Malays? Is it not logical
that, after having been made to believe that the religious is not the
father and shepherd of their souls and their friend and enthusiastic
defender, but a vile exploiter, and that the peninsular here is no
more than a trader constituted with greater or less authority and
rank, that they should madly and illegally have imagined that they
could easily separate from España and aspire to self-government?
Gloomy situation of the archipelago and omens of its future. We
shall not insist, your Excellency, on this order of consideration,
for it rends our soul, it cleaves our heart in twain, to consider how
easily so many rivers of blood, so great and extravagant expenses,
and so extraordinary conflicts, might have been spared, which in a
not long lapse of time, may, perhaps, result in the disappearance
of the immortal flag of Castilla; how easily the military situation,
originated by the insurrection, a situation that was threatening to
make of Filipinas another Cuba, might have been avoided; and with how
little trouble the archipelago might have been continuing at present
in the same tranquillity and peacefully progressive situation as it
had years ago: if having the power, as was a fact, but that was not
attempted or thought of, the door had been shut on the disturbers; if
masonry had never been allowed in the country; and if every tendency
contrary to the moral prestige, the most powerful social bond,
immensely superior to all armies and all political institutions which
united these countries with their beloved and respected mother-country,
had been effectively restrained in their beginnings.
Has the present most gloomy situation any remedy?
It is somewhat difficult, and even dangerous, to answer the question,
for if the Katipunan was six months ago relegated to the hills of
Laguna and Bulacan among the rebel leaders who were fugitive there,
or was dragging out a shameful existence in certain villages that were
in communication with the insurgents, today the plague has spread. For
the ones pardoned at Biac-na-bató, breaking the promise given to
the gallant and energetic marquis de Estella, [205] obedient to the
watchword received, have spread through the central provinces; and by
using threats and terrible punishments, which have no precedents in the
pages of history, nor even of the novel, have succeeded in attracting
to their ranks a great number of Indians, even in villages which gave
eloquent proof of loyalty to the holy cause of the Spanish fatherland
before the submission of Biac-na-bató. They have also succeeded in
establishing themselves in Cápiz and in other points of the Visayas:
and indeed the movement of Zambales, of Pangasinan, of Ilocos, of Cebú,
and of the Katipunans, are at present open in Manila.
The thought of what may happen to this beautiful country at any
moment terrifies us, for we do not know to what point sectarian
fanaticism may go, exploiting the suggestibility of this race and
their weak brain by the deeds that they are heralding, brought to a
head by them, in regard to the army, whose increase in the proportion
that would be necessary to establish a complete military situation,
they know to be impossible; by the published exemption from the cédula
[206] and other tributes; by the supposed immunity of amulets, called
anting-anting; by the illusion that none but Indians will hold office,
and that the alcaldes and generals will be from their ranks; by the
remembrance that money and confidence were given to the rebels of
Cavité, Bulacan, and other points; by the news that their partisans
were sending them from Madrid and Hong-kong; by the example of goodly
numbers of peninsulars, who are not on their guard against showing
their hostility to the religious, in order by that manner to procure
the latter's disregard by their parishioners, who even dare to lay
hands on them; and by innumerable other methods, too many, in short,
to enumerate, but terribly destructive, and of maddening and vigorous
influence in these Malayan villages.
The thought of what consist the secrets of the revolution, which the
learned gentleman, appointed as arbitrator [207] by the so-called
government of the insurgents to arrange with the superior authority
of the islands as to the conditions of submission and the surrender of
arms, swore to keep secret, as appears from the justificative document
of his authorization, is also terrifying. We are ignorant of what those
secrets may be, which apparently are not the politico-ecclesiastical
reforms which are now demanded in Madrid, since those matters are
mentioned openly in the abovesaid document signed by Aguinaldo in
the name of the rebel assembly; and the most courageous heart is
terrified at the fancy that there might be an organization more
powerful, more far-reaching, more general and active of revolution,
somewhat like the Katipunan, which we now see to be rapidly spreading,
and which at a moment's notice, would effect a general rising, whose
most saddening results one can easily foresee, and avoid with the
greatest difficulty, unless every labor association be effectually
prosecuted and extirpated in time.
Remedy for that situation. Laying aside for the meanwhile those
dangers, which are daily obscuring the Filipino horizon more deeply,
and supposing, as we desire, that peace may be obtained throughout
the islands, the situation of the archipelago has a remedy, and
one, as is clear, that consists in removing all the causes that
have produced so deep a confusion and in prudently and with justice
adopting the measures that, assuring peace, will protect and encourage
the legitimate interests of these inhabitants. The great mass of the
country is not corrupted. It suffers from an access of hallucination
and fanaticism produced by sectarian preachings and practices, but
its heart and head are not perverted. If it be attended with care,
it will return to its former pacific habits and submission. The
wealthy and intelligent classes, still healthy, protest against all
those movements, and since they are loyal and friendly to us, desire
the normal mean to be reestablished as soon as possible, and will
contribute, together with the institutions of the mother-country,
to the most glorious undertaking of restoring order and the pacific
and progressive trend of the archipelago.
It pertains to the government to direct and manage those forces
in order to obtain so satisfactory an end, by reestablishing the
mainsprings of government, now so nearly disappeared or very much
weakened; by giving prestige to all the conservative elements;
and with an administration, grave, intelligent, active, stable,
moral, acquainted with, and fond of the country, and one dissociated
with every political doctrine, to continue and perfect the just
and benevolent, and Catholic and Spanish regimen: whereby the
mother-country would gain the sympathies of these inhabitants and
establish its dominion securely.