Just as the bishops who live within their dioceses are bishops in
partibus, the king is that in the Filipinas Islands. His Majesty
resides in them by the authority communicated to his president and
Audiencia, and to the alcaldes, governors, and corregidors of the
provinces, in which the president, Audiencia, and other ministers do
not command, but only the religious father.
The king is named as such, and is called upon as king, only in order
that he may pay the stipends; beyond that his royal name is abhorred
and persecuted.
It causes horror to see a religious, paid and maintained by his
Majesty, with the character of apostolic missionary, no sooner
arrived at Manila from these kingdoms than he immediately publishes
and defends the assertion that the king is not master of the islands,
but only they who have conquered them; that the Indian ought not to
pay tribute; and that no bull [i.e., of the Crusade] is needed. It is
for this very reason that there are so many difficulties in collecting
the tribute, and that the bull is not purchased excepting in Manila
and its environs.
With these opinions, and their extolling, some the pontifical grants
to their girdle, others those of the scapulary of Carmel, [83] and
others their exercises, they obtain vast contributions which they
call alms; and the king is left with the bulls, for the religious
assert and proclaim that they are not necessary.
In regard to jurisdiction, it is a well-known fact that no
gobernadorcillo of Indians carries out any mandate of the president,
Audiencia, or alcalde without the permission of the religious
father--under penalty of one hundred lashes, which are given to him
instantly if he obeys the royal magistrates and justices.
With these and other pernicious ideas in which the fathers abound,
they surprise the poor Indian, strike him with terror, and make him
believe that they are all-powerful, can do everything, and that the
authority of the king is worth nothing. Thus the king becomes, like
the bishops, a monarch in partibus, in name alone, and only in order to
maintain certain persons who style themselves apostolic missionaries.
A few days after I had arrived at Manila, the archbishop-governor
[i.e., Rojo] despatched an order to the province of Pampanga; it
fell into the hands of a father, and he tore it to bits with great
calmness, the archbishop overlooking that act of disrespect. Hence,
even in case that one obey any mandate of the royal jurisdiction,
so many are the obstacles and difficulties that the fathers find for
its execution, that they absolutely do not have any other endeavor or
desire than to cause the Indian not to recognize any other sovereign
than themselves. The worst is, that this idea has existed since the
conquest of the two Americas, whence it passed to Filipinas, with the
utter detriment and ruin of king, state, and religion. Hence the king
is called king, and the president, Audiencia, and alcaldes by their
own names; but, in reality, the fathers exercise these functions. [84]