Excerpts from the Novel: Misterios de Filipinas Published 1859
Originally written in Spanish by: D. Antonio Garcia del Canto
Translated into English by: Maria Remedios Layug Zachary
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"In the Philippines, only two classes exist, the aristocrats and the
plebeians. You should not compare the aristocrats’ titles to
the pompous titles created by feudalism, which were also created to give
splendor to the monarchies, as a compensation for immortal services, or
because the king was an excessive spender, like the Henrys and
Felipes. Don’t, because an aristocrat in the Philippines has the
same rights to his title as the plebeian with whom he lives. To be
an aristocrat in the Philippines, the only title you need is to be a
European, and to be from to the great proletarian family one must belong
to the Malayan race with olive or dark bronze skin that is scattered all
over the beautiful and fertile islands of the Oceania. Even though between
these two classes (like an assimilation to our middle class) there exists
another class, there is
no tie between them, nor sympathy that will enable them to subjugate as a
group the more powerful. This intermediate class is what we
Spaniards have given the name of mestiza." (Author wrote mestiza because
clase is feminine i.e. la clase mestiza. Also the author originally
said only two classes but then he went on to talk about three
classes)
"Nothing is more beautiful than the immense bay of Manila. It measures 30
leagues in width, in which all the fleets of the world can anchor.
It looks like a crystal lake, the only movements in it were the circles
and bubbles formed by the playing golden fishes who jump from out of the
water eager to inhale the balmy breeze caused by the fragrant flowers of
the East."
"Spaniards in the
Philippines don’t use mattresses, instead they sleep on a mat or two laid
over a cot made of rattan "
"A child of a Spaniard and a native of the Philippines is called a
mestizo while in America, a child of a Spaniard and a native is
called a mulato".
"Hijo del pais:
born in the Philippines to pure European or pure Spanish parents.
Criollo is the term used in America".
"Cumintang is a popular type of song in the province of Tondo. It
is the first kind that Spanish women and mestizas learn to play with
harp".
"In spite of being very
simple, Europeans ignore Tagalog absolutely. They don’t spend time to
study it. I can guarantee that for every 100 who stayed in Manila for
6 years, 4 don’t understand nor speak Tagalog. Tagalog is particularly
convenient for chiefs and officials in the military. Nobody can doubt
a Tagalog-speaking officer who leaves with 40 or 50 men under his command
but there isn’t anyone to whom he could direct his command in Spanish,
except for the sergeant who only has a very basic grasp of Spanish".
"In Manila, the city that is enclosed within walls, you breath a heavy
and suffocating atmosphere, particularly during late in the day.
This is due to the absolute lack of the lightest breeze, as well as the
foul-smelling exhalations that are emitted by Its few clean moats, often
deadly for its inhabitants, and particularly for Europeans. However,
after having hardly stepped outside the drawbridges and looking at the
horizon to see the setting sun, the heart widens and you breathe with
delicious pleasure upon contemplating the magnificent panorama that is
showing in the distance. Nothing is more beautiful, more poetic than
seeing from the intrenchment (a shapeless mound of earth on the seashore in
the camp of Bagumbayan) on an afternoon in January, the islands of
Corregidor and Mariviles, still golden with the weakening rays of the sun
that greet the appearance of the pale goddess of the night, who presents
herself by shedding love, light and melancholy on the opposite
horizon".
"This magnificent landscape is discovered through the already mentioned
intrenchment, and if we unite this landscape with the 100 carriages that roll
on the street, they’re generally magnificent. This is because next
to the aristocratic carriage, the elegant tilbury runs fast. They
carry the pale women, yes, but they’re pretty with their paleness, their
black, languid and voluptuous eyes, that to us represent the Houris
promised by Muhammad to the good believers. And to form a totally
enchanting sight, we turn our eyes to the sides of the street and we
see a thousand indias and mestizas in the cigar trade on their way to
Malate, Ermita and Santa Ana with their embroidered camisas made from
piña, silk skirts of different colors and slippers with gold and silver
embroideries. A European who saw this picture for the first time will come
to know the pleasant effect that it must have caused in him. But
God, one has hardly set foot on the dusty or muddy streets of the city,
then he falls into a melancholic apathy and the heart closes with pain to
all the sweet sensations".
"Currently the Parian is a filthy housing of prostitutes and vices,
because in addition to selling meat, fish and other kinds of rotten foods
that infest the rest of the town, it is where the lost women, the
military deserters, escapees from prison, gather inside its walls to
discuss their issues and how awful and wretched are the lives of the
native women because all of them go to the capital to serve in the
houses of Spaniards through which they liberate themselves from the burden
caused by living in the provincial towns".
"Cavite is a
stronghold located two leagues from Manila; it is in its own bay. It is
the capital of the province and the area is heavily covered with forests;
the reason all criminals seek shelter in it. It has become the
meeting place of more than 200 men alarming the governor of the
colony".
"Nothing is more
common than seeing everyday in Manila the deserting soldiers and convicts
joining the thieves because the indio prefers the chain of the convict
than the honorable profession of the soldier. Anyone who doesn’t
understand the character of an indio needs a broad explanation. An
indio from birth enjoys the freedom of a bird. Nature belongs to
him, so to speak and the admirable fertility of the nature’s virgin floor
gives him more food than he needs, almost without having to work.
The oceans and rivers give him magnificent fishes, the warmth of the
climate allows him to walk naked, the palm lends him its shade and the
smooth moss offers him a soft bed. He has very few necessities
because his sustenance is valued by the here and now. He slides with
his free and happy life in the inner provinces and he doesn’t know nor
aspire for better enjoyments. This indio, raised with delicious and
appetizing liberty since his birth, is suddenly taken and transported to
Manila because the time has come for him to be conscripted for military
service. As a soldier, he is subjected to military discipline; which
he doesn’t understand. He is obligated to eat as scheduled at the
beat of the drum when he is accustomed to eating each time his stomach
indicates it. He is dressed in a dress coat that drowns him when he has
never squeezed his chest nor his arms on anything but a shirt made of
sinamay and generally he does not put on his shirt. He puts on a
bowtie on his neck which has the same effect as an adjusted noose.
He puts on shoes that squeeze his feet as if he put them inside a
press. All of these combined confuses him. It makes him
desperate and he doesn’t long for anything but the moment he will be able
to get rid of a very insufferable existence. For the indio, a very
light suit has to be designed, without a bowtie or any garment that
restricts him, and then the decline in the deserters will be
noticed. This will even encourage the Indios to re-enlist".
"It’s also common to
see on the streets of Manila a pair of convicts, bound by the same chain,
looking for the soldier in charge of their custody so that they can be
taken to prison; meanwhile that soldier is in some portal or buyo store
talking about love to his woman, but this pair, even though left
unguarded, do not escape because there are indios who prefer prison than
the bad treatment from the baranggay head, an indio like them".
"Pasig River is navigable through pancos and paraws, water vessels in the
Philippines. These boats are used for all trades with Laguna".
"Both banks of Pasig are extremely picturesque and are adorned with good
recreational houses where the inhabitants of Manila go to bathe and amuse
themselves continuously and particularly during the hot season. All the
people that rise up from its shores are rich and its inhabitants live in
enviable happiness".
"It’s a common saying
that in Manila, there are four months of dust, four months of mud, and
four months of everything".
"From 1844 until 1851
there was only one Spanish shopkeeper in Manila. This is because the
Spaniards believe that they are lowering their dignity by engaging in this
honorable trade. This is the reason the Chinese have a monopoly on
the business because they are shoemakers, tailors, carpenters and they do
most of the mechanical jobs. These are what make the Chinese in
Manila rich in a few years. There was one Catalan shopkeeper during
that time, named Dupuig, a tailor, honorable and hardworking. He was
very active, free from the stupid worries of the common people.
There was also a Catalan tailor in Manila named Ferrer". (Wonder why the author said no more than one Spanish shopkeeper
existed when there were 2 of them?)
"All indias and
mestizas have magnificent hair, and above all very long and thick, which
must consist of washing their hair daily and then perfuming their hair
with coconut oil".
"The place where more
piña cloth is manufactured than any other place is the Island
of Panay, one of the islands of the Visayas, particularly in the province
of Iloilo, so much so that It is one of the richest provinces in the
archipelago. The inhabitants of Iloilo enjoy major luxuries and
comfort. There are many mestizos in this province and the mestizas
are generally very pretty".
"The Indios and
Mestizos are dressed alike. They wear cotton or silk pants, red or
blue with but with many stripes or are checkered with different background
color. Their shirt is made of piña or nipis that are worn over their
red, white or blue pants. Their shirts are either embroidered or
unembroidered, depending on their wealth. They wear a red cotton
handkerchief around their head or a salacot instead of a cotton
handkerchief. To complement their attires they have to add a rosary
made of pearls, gold or coral. Everyone wears his rosary hanging
down to the middle of his chest like that of a collar worn by a
Knight of the Golden Fleece. The indios in the province and,
even the women, take off their shirts to work, most of all when they pound
rice, which is called peeling off the husk".
"The Salacot is a
kind of almost flat hat, woven from a fiber called nito, it has very wide
wings and is extremely light; It’s adorned with cords that are tied
under the chin in the style of a chinstrap, and on top they put a silver
plate and an animal figure also made of silver, usually a rooster. All the
Indios of the provinces use it to work in the field, although without any
decoration. Because it is very light in weight, this hat is
used for preserving the head from the sun and rain. Unadorned,
it is very cheap; it can be bought from 2-1/2 to 3 reales of
silver. The Philippine military uses it always for marches and
expeditions. You can form an exact idea of its shape if you compare
it to the lid of a metal inkwell".
"The leaves of the
buyo plant, prepared with the fruit of the Bonga (palm) and a little
lime are chewed by the Filipinos and produce a disgusting, red
saliva. Immensely consumed in the Philippines, it is difficult to find a
Filipino, including Spaniards born in the Philippines, who is not
constantly chewing buyo. This they do because they say it is very
invigorating.
The preparation of buyo plant, bonga and lime is called buyo as a
whole. It makes one’s teeth ugly and could cause the loss of
teeth. Among the indios and mestizos, there is a custom between buyo
users of chewing a buyo before giving it to each other: they call this
disgusting proof of love Zapa-Zapa".
"Sampaguita is a
flower belonging to the jazmin family, very fragrant and abundant in the
Philippines".
"Gumamela is a flower
belonging to the rose family, but its petals (although the author wrote
hojas, I would say he meant pétalos) are wider. It comes in many
colors; but the one used for hair is red".
"Bathing is a basic necessity in the Philippines, same as eating and
sleeping. Everybody takes a bath every day of the year and there are
people who stay in the water for three or four hours".
"The climate in the Philippines changes the system inside a European’s
body that the most active, hardworking becomes apathetic and lazy.
What’s more, the servants are cheap and an indio is a very humble
servant. Many Spaniards, so that they don’t have to move, even when
a burning light is within their reach, tell their servants to light their
cigars".
"If there is any snake that instills fear in the Filipinos, it is the
Dahompalay. Even though it is not a rod long, its venom is more
active than that of the viper. In spite of this, several Indios
catch them and play with them, always managing to not let the snake be
near their mouths, arms or hands".
"In the Philippines, as in all countries in Intertropical zones, there is
hardly any twilight because by the time the sun sets it is already night
and the day appears almost at the same time as the eastern heavenly
body".
"Filipinos, savages or civilized, have a great liking for living by
themselves. So much so that some build their houses in the most
hidden part of the forest. It is believed that the reason is so
that the parish priests do not disturb them during the superstitious
ceremonies that they practice even though they are Christians".
"Vengeance is indispensable among the savages. If a person from a
village kills one from another, everyone from the village where the dead
person lived armed themselves to kill someone from where the killer
lives. This causes a never-ending war. We were in Pangasinan
in 1846 when someone from a village gouged out the eyes of someone from
another village. The people from the village where the now blind man
lived gouged out the eyes of two people from the other village in
return. The people from the other village gouged out the eyes of two
from the other. Everyone would have been blind if the Comandante
General of the Igorrotes, Sr. Coballes y Bermudez, had not ordered his
adjutant Don Gabriel Arraz to put them in peace with each other".
"The majority of the savages, particularly from Mayoyao and Silipan,
practice the barbarous customs of giving human heads as wedding gifts".
"Although, unlike other villages, the savages of Amburayan mountain range
are not famous for practicing cannibalism, there had been an occasion
where they ate the dead bodies of their own people. This
happened according to Mas in the village of Baruncucureng, near the town
of Tagudin in the province of Ilocos Sur".
"The Italones and Ibilaos, when they kill an enemy, they drink their
enemy’s blood and eat pieces of their enemy’s lungs and entrails to make
them courageous".
"The Gaddanes, Mayoyaos and others, when they kill an enemy they cut off
the enemy’s head, then they begin dancing while drinking his blood
and passing his head from one person to the other. They also like
sucking the brains of their dead enemies, then adorning the handles of
their swords with their enemies’ molars".
"No other disease horrifies the Igorots more than smallpox. So much
so that when it spreads in a village, everyone abandons the village and
leaves the people suffering from the disease, be they fathers, mothers,
brothers or offsprings. For the most part, the sick people left to
the ravages of their disease die as a consequence".
"Servant indios, even when loaded with chores, are accustomed to
waking up the same time as their masters. In their own homes,
servant indios are early risers".
“Tu cuidado” is an expression widely used in the Philippines by the
Spaniards. A master sends a servant to do a job difficult to perform
and the instruction the master gives his servant is “tu cuidado.”
The servant will then know that he has to perform it in the best possible
way. This expression is extended even in the military. When
the instructions are verbal, “tu ciudado” means the chief is giving the
responsibility to the officer who is going to carry out a
commission. A lover wants to go to a dance where his beloved cannot
go, he consults with her and she replies “tu cuidado" the lover has to
take into account that she may be a jealous type. He may get
uncomfortable with his decision and finally resolve prudently what to do,
taking into account whether or not he will displease his beloved, etc".
"The indios take their wives and daughters to the houses of the Spaniards
to prostitute them whenever it is worth money; and it should be noted that
mothers are less likely to prostitute their daughters than fathers.
We could cite towns and names of people and events of this nature that we
have witnessed. In his story about the Philippines, Mas says
referring to what a friar said: "Another rare attribute is that
although some are usually jealous, but when they want to request something
from a Spaniard, they do not go, but rather send their wife or daughter,
without being suspicious of the outcome"; And then Mas adds: “If Fray
Gaspar had been to Madrid, He would not be so surprised that men
wanting something would send their women to obtain favors.” For the
rest, the Filipinos, not only with suspicion, but with full knowledge,
usually send and even lead them to the Spaniards in order to obtain some
employment or merely money. The most direct means in general of
keeping a married woman is to win over her husband, as well as to keep an
unmarried woman, win over her mother. I have very particularly known a
butler who was extremely in love with his wife, and was jealous even of
his shadow: however, at the slightest hint from his master he brought her
into his room, and it seems he wished it very often. Reflecting on this, I
am convinced of the reason behind this. Partly, to the Filipinos,
the act of love (sex?) is of little importance. Most of all, they
are persuaded that their women never fall in love with the Spaniards and
the Filipino women are only in it for the gain. To the Filipino
women, it is a personal service like any other. The women take with
them their whole hearts when the act of love is done".
"It seems to me that Mr. Mas was very wrong in his reflection, and what he
attributes to the little importance of acts of love and to the idea they
have that their women never love us, cannot be true at all. If that
were true why are the rich Filipinos not doing it with their women?
Why aren’t the daughters of rich indios not giving themselves
up to a Spaniard even if the reason is not seduction or money? On the
contrary, we see that all of them would like to marry Spaniards and that
those who are married to a Spaniard are very faithful and very loving to
their husbands. So what is the reason that some give themselves to us and
prostitute and others don't? It has something to do with the wealth
that the Indio possesses. The rich Indio has his aspirations, his
pride and his honor. The education that a rich India receive greatly
influences her loving behavior, while the miserable India who has not
received any education, has no thought of honor and delicacy. This scandal
can only cut off the moral education that the Indias receive through the
pulpit in their towns".
"Spanish women born in the Philippines (criollas) like eating with their
hands, no spoon no fork. The most decent thing to do when eating
would have been using spoon and fork given their education and social
status. We were surprised one time by a young aristocrat woman
eating rice and chicken with her hand. This can only be explained by
the little care the parents have on the women hired to raise their
daughters or the other servants who teach their daughters to eat according
to the natives’ custom."
"All the convents and Spaniards’ houses are full of little boys who are
sons of the towns’ principales. If a Spaniard go to the province,
the indios beg this Spaniard to let their sons serve him that way their
sons can learn the Spanish language".
"Generally Spaniards use carriage, same way the parish priests do in the
Philippines, clergies or friars. So much so that the friars, aside
from owning a carriage or two for recreation, they own four or six horses
to form a team, and one or two horses for mounting. However, they
find putting their feet in the stirrup bothersome that they don’t ever put
their feet in the stirrup. They have them for luxury. This
causes us to laugh hearing in Spain some men talking with real Christian
compassion about the friars in a ship leaving for the Philippines.
The poor ones will suffer from their jobs, deprivations and miseries of
the missions".
"Vigan is the capital of Ilocos Sur. It has about 40,000 residents
and after Manila and Cebu, it is the best in the islands".
"Don Sinibaldo de Mas in his history of the Philippines stated that in
order to marry, a young man has to give his girlfriend money or something
worth as much. Many times what this young man has to give is really
for the parents. Without the dowry, the girl’s parents would rather let
their daughter stay unmarried even though she is already pregnant.
Sinibaldo de Mas also stated that it is rare for women to be virgins on
their wedding day and many have had children before their marriage.
They do not give great importance to these slips, no matter how much the
priests insist on putting it into consideration. Don Sinibaldo de Mas have
heard assurance from some men that they don’t see their women dishonored,
on the contrary it is a testament that someone else has fallen in love
with their women before. Señor Mas quoted Fr. Manuel Ortiz in his
history. According to him Fr. Manuel Ortiz said, ”The little modesty
that indios and indias have among themselves is very common. For
this reason they do not shy away from being together in the houses
where they live. They eat and sleep together, no matter the gender,
married or not, girl or boy ….. everything. There must have been
many sins committed not only of one kind but many, as a result many
abominations and monstrosity.” The author added another quote (presumably
from Fr. Manuel Ortiz) “that in the province of Pangasinan we have seen a
girl pregnant by her father, because incest is very common among the
indios. However, she was going to marry a young man from the same
town. When the young man was asked if he was embarrassed to marry a
woman who got pregnant by her father (widely and notoriously known in his
town), he answered with great indifference “Parejo, señor” meaning “It’s
all the same to me whether it is her father’s child or mine".
"Tribunal is the house of the city council or the ayuntamiento.
These houses, in general, are very badly built, and as a consequence it
does not look very decent for the town hall to be within the grounds of
the tribunal. We would like the government of the metropoli (Spain)
to give it some thoughts and order that the tribunal be all built the
same; And since in many towns they serve as lodging for the troop that
transits, a place could be set aside inside the tribunal exclusively for
this purpose, and another for the Spaniards of any class who travel
through the islands, so that they do not have to beg the friars or priests
to lodge them in their convents". (the author wrote conventos).
"Señor Mas says in his work, in the chapter on Administration
of Justice, page 21 of volume 2. " To put an indio in jail is to transfer
him to a room better than his own; there they give him food and for
however little and bad the food was, it will never be worse that the food
he is accustomed to having everyday. In jail he does not work, on
the contrary he lies down all day, which is his happiness. You will
find his compatriots in the same room with whom he talks and chews
buyo: therefore in this country the idea of going to jail is much
different than in Spain, where the men are always animated by the spirit
of activity and the love for work.”
"Señor Mas was most inaccurate on his report on the paragraph cited
above. He hastily wrote his work within 16 months and he was sick
for much of the time. A Filipino is horrified of imprisonment,
not of the imprisonment per se, not for his reputation or
anything like that. He is horrified because naturally no one is more
inclined towards liberty and laziness than he who is accustomed to
liberty and laziness since birth".
"Forbid an Indio to walk by rivers and seas, engage in cockfight and be,
as Señor Mas says in another chapter, within the scent of a woman (you
don’t experience these in prison) and you’ll see him desperate".
"But even if it were not, the prison system in the Philippines is the most
horrifying than can be imagined. With the exception of the Tondo jail and
some other provincial capitals, the rest have jails in name only; the
prison of the indio during the summary of a cause or misdemeanor is in the
tribunales. These buildings are open all the time and to prevent
prisoners from escaping, guilty or not, prisoners are put in stocks1
. With the stocks in place they stay in prison for days, months or
years. But let us concentrate on the model prisons, which is in
Manila or Tondo. Let’s say that 100 or 200 prisoners are cramped
together in an underground jail, the level of which is lower than that of
the river that licks the walls of the building . In this jailhouse
which is 60 or 70 rods2 long, prisoners are confused. Whatever crime they committed,
they are not given more than rice for food, they are not provided beds to
sleep on, and those who have mats sleep on them; but those who don’t,
sleep on the hard and humid floor such that they breath an impossible to
avoid nauseating and rotten atmosphere".
-
Stock (Cepo). Instrument made of two thick logs, together the logs form
round holes. Through the holes the neck or leg of the prisoner is
locked joining the logs. Source: Real Academia
Española
-
Rods: old English measure of distance equal to 16.5
feet
(5.029 metres), with variations from 9 to 28 feet (2.743 to 8.534
metres) also being used. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
"As for saying that an indio does not care about being in prison, we only
need to cite the many uprisings that happened in Manila jail so that the
prisoners could escape. These uprisings have been verified many
times. We will cite the uprisings and escapes by the prisoners from
Capiz, Antique, Calamianes and thousands of others that we will not
mention because we deemed it unnecessary. Many times we have been on
guard duty in the jail house of Tondo in Manila. In spite of the
night breeze, it was not easy to walk by the front of the building because
we could not stand the bad odor coming from the sewer of the place where
the prisoners were cramped. We can say the same thing about a penal
establishment called galera or presidio".
"In the provinces, the theft with the highest consequence of punishment
is the stealing of carabaos. This is because without his
carabao an indio would not know what to do".
"Mr. Mas says in his work speaking of mayors “The mayor does not
know the language. His interpreter is the clerk of court, an indio,
and the chief troublemaker. The clerk of court is almost
always in agreement with the rich indios. Because the mayor is a
businessman in reality, naturally he is more interested in his business
than agents and he lets the clerk run the court. The clerk becomes
the arbitrator and this is how the clerk makes himself a fortune".
"In all the Courts or Town Hall houses there are always some horses ready
for courier duty. Immediately when a letter from an authority arrives at a
court, a sheriff rides on horseback to get to the court of the next
town, until from town to town the document reaches its destination.
Because an indio when riding horses does not need a chair, saddle, or any
kind of tack, he does this duty with more accurateness".
"In Manila, every unmarried woman is called niña, even those who are forty
years old. When calling a young woman, you first say niña then you
say her name. The same thing happens to the young men". (most likely the author meant that young men are called niños.)
"Manila, at one time China’s emporium of commerce, so much so that the
Spaniards and foreigners called it the Pearl of the Orient, is now so poor
that it needs the genius of a great man to raise it. Not too long
ago, the Philippines was considered only as a deportation point.
There were very few, or perhaps no one, who considered stepping on the
sand of its shores. This is because even the adventurers do not see
any value in it, because our possessions in America offer bigger areas of
lands to make a fortune.
The scarcity of educated and knowledgeable men was the reason why those
who came to its shores, already coming from some jail or prison in Spain
or America, mariners, cabin boys in some ship, servants and barbers of
some Governor, were appointed mayors of a province. Even though they
were unskilled not only to civilize but govern, they had sufficient
aptitude to become capitalists. In six or five years they found
their fortunes to be worth 70 to 100,000 pesos. This is the
composition of the population, or, to be exact, the
aristocracy of Manila".
"When fate, or rather the intolerance, the ineptitude and bad faith, made
us lose our rich possessions in América, Manila lost its position. Few years before,
in 1815 the Philippines was no longer trading with Acapulco. For a
little more than two centuries, this trade with Acapulco generated over
400.000,000 Pesos Fuertes for the cashboxes of the businessmen in
Manila. When Mexico and other provinces in America got its
independence from Spain, many families from more decent origins arrived in
the Philippines and therefore the start of a somewhat better treatment and
education of the Spaniards in the Philippines. The majority of those
who came from America lost their fortune through the insurrection.
They had to give deference to those deeply rooted in the country so that
they could benefit from their influence and capitals; therefore their
improvement was slow and always the prevailing treatment they got from the
richest and cream of the society was uncivil and ordinary".
"At last the year 1845 came, time of military revolts and upheavals in the
motherland. This epoch made a lot of the families of employees and
militaries apply for their passes to the Philippines and since then has
started the development of finer and more delicate treatment of them
although from time to time they had to endure their maritime or tavern
origin".
"The Spaniard in Manila, whatever his position and even though in Spain he
had been a ragman or something like that, he becomes vain such that, he
comes to imagine that he is a feudal lord. He uses stamps, coats of
arms and liveries, that many Spanish nobles would recognize as
exclusively theirs. They are all military personnel, employees or
businessmen. The employee enjoys a high salary with very lucrative
commissions; he does not work more than three hours a day because even
though he is in the office for five hours, two or three hours are spent
reading newspapers or gossiping about the government or individuals. It is
the military that suffers in every way. Aside from being very
laborious, being a guard or doing any other ordinary services, a military
personnel has to do his duties in excessive heat and it is
incomprehensible why all the rulers make a soldier dressed as he does in
Europe, with buckles and ties. This causes a decrease in the number
of military personnel due to death by 14% each year. Aside from
this, soldiers are away on departures and detachments that last 12 or 14
months, not counting the expeditions in the mountains of the savages,
during which a soldier has to live carefully in the humid and unhealthy
mountains. He is continuously exposed to the rays of the sun and
heavy rain that floods the Philippines for months. As a result of
this, the cemeteries are filled with dead bodies and crosses are planted
on the mountains. It is sad to say that a soldier’s salary is very
low, from the captain down, that it hardly covers his basic
necessities. This is the cause of the always hateful and serious
comparisons in the colonies; meanwhile those who are suffering in the
honorable career in the armed services are forgotten. It is the
military that in necessary cases sustains the conquest and opposes the
uprisings that perhaps is found closer than what some think. It is
the military who evaluates the situation of public affairs through the
situation of its domestic affairs. Isn’t it painful to see a
Colonel with thirty or more years of service, commanding a regiment, who,
with much influence, can maintain the precious dominion with a salary
of just five thousand pesos? At the same time, is the salary
of a judge (who like many judges just finished his studies and is a bad
lawyer) ₱4,000.00?
Is it not scandalous to see a superintendent earning a salary of 12,000
pesos, with house and other trifles, a superintendent who just a year or
two before was perhaps not even a government employee, while the
General Segundo Cabo, military inspector and the second highest authority
in the islands does not earn more than 6,000? It’s a salary almost
equal to that of a judge. And lastly, is it not shameful to see a
military with 20 or 50 years of service, perhaps having been wounded
heavily, enjoy his meager monthly salary of 40 pesos, if he is a
sublieutenant, or 50 if he is a lieutenant, at the same time an adolescent
who just got out of school is assigned to the islands by the Minister of
Finance, receives 60 or 80 pesos each month, the lowest monthly salary he
can get, and he has to be taught to read and write upon arrival before he
applies for or he is given the job he came to the Philippines for and what
is more scandalous, he obtains a Royal order to stay in the Península with
all his salary but the goal is to study in school" .
"There is another kind of employees in the rich heritage of the Philippine
Islands.
I am speaking of the mayors and governors of the provinces. There
is no other class of this kind. Within five or six years they will
have owned a capital of 40 to 50,000 pesos and this is to assume
that it will be enough so that the administration of justice is run with
the least righteousness possible. When a mayor or governor of a
province arrives in Manila he takes 8 or 10,000 duros from a trading house
or from a religious foundation with 15% discount and pays 6% to
those who stood as guarantors for the amount borrowed. Upon taking
charge of the administration of the province that the government has
entrusted to him, he does not bother to track where he is progressing and
where he is not, if the industry is prospering, if he can introduce some
improvements in this or the other, what articles can be major exports or
will sell the most in Europe and if his delegates are fulfilling their
duties well. Instead, he distributes his capital among the
indios in the rice business on condition of paying in the first
harvest with a 100 or 200 per 100 profit. He pursues everyone who
engages in business, Spanish or native, until that Spanish or native is
driven out of the province or abandons his trade. He employs
the indios to build for him a storage for his commercial products, without
payment for their labor, and he becomes a species of a Chinese Mandarin or
a pasha bearing a standard of three tails. There are some honorable
exceptions, but they are the least".
"Nobody exploits the young mestizas of Manila with more impertinence than the English merchants. They spend a lot of money on these women to sustain them with luxury. It is very rare that they don’t have a kept woman".
"Do not think that there is a slight exaggeration. The towns of Santa Cruz, San Sebastian and Binondo, towns outside of Manila, have magnificent annual festivities in honor of their saints. The rich mestizos always invite some Spaniards to come and honor their houses. For their guests on the day of festivity, as they say, they throw their houses outside the windows. From morning the tables are filled with hams, turkeys, chickens and thousands of other kinds of delicacies and exquisite wines. These tables are ready for dining because the mestizos are very happy to see Spaniards at their tables even though they don’t know them. So, there is a family that does not eat at home. They attend festivities with all their greediness in the first house that they believe there is a buffet; they get into the house, go to the table, eat and leave without talking to anyone. They do not even bother to ask who is the owner of the house so that they can give him thanks. This goes unnoticed up to a certain point, because almost every Spanish family does it, continuously going up and down the stairs of every house where there is food. And lastly, in the last house they visit, they fill up their pockets and have desserts in their own homes for five or six days afterwards".
"Liver diseases are very often suffered by Europeans and are generally fatal".
"The indios have healers who know certain herbs to cure their illnesses. These healers perfectly help the sick people to die. They attribute all the illnesses to the air and try to extract it from the sick person’s body with cupping glasses and scrubs, which in addition to irritating the sick a lot, it does not do anything more than make the illness worse".
"However, for surgical cases, perhaps the indios as healers have more understanding of the cases than the Spanish medical surgeons, because they have many health and medicinal herbs. They know these herbs and medicines' effects better than anyone, and know when to apply them. They also practice healing through witchcraft and other superstitions that they had to resort to at any cost to evade the government and clerics. But for this, it is necessary that the government obtain a pair of doctors in each province with equal number of practitioners that can help with patience the natural healers in cases of absolute necessities: in childbirth is where the Spanish doctors are needed more. A labor that does not appear normal causes the death of the mother and infant. In a town in Ilocos, we have seen a poor india suffering horribly for four days from pain until she succumbed due to the baby’s left arm having been pulled out but no one had the knowledge to have the slightest disposition. (To this translator, it sounds like a case of a baby positioned horizontally inside the womb, instead of the usual baby’s head downward and nearest the birth canal. A case where the infant’s arm entered the birth canal first and the baby got stuck inside)"
"In the town of San Fernando we saw a woman buried whose baby was alive inside her womb at the time she died, so much so that the priest who gave her the extreme unction in our presence asked us if we wanted to open her womb to get the baby out, but we did not dare because we did not consider ourselves suitable to do it, we did not even have the instruments to try. The illustrious General Claveria established in every province a practitioner to administer vaccines, and although with this he rendered a great service to humanity, more than vaccines were needed to avoid the mortality that can be noticed in some provinces based on the dead bodies seen in the islands in 1850".
" In number 66 of the La Gaceta Militar on January 1, 1852, is found among others the following lines written by the author in a controversy he had with La España. The controversy is about increasing the numbers of military personnel in the Philippines because the religious elements are no longer sufficient to maintain the tranquility and dominion of the colony:
I will only say that the remission of deportees to the islands, has caused the ultimate harm to our moral influence, because along with those who were deported for political reasons, the perverts were mixed. These are men without faith, without patriotism; the scum of society. These scums placed the Spanish grandeur and dignity at the same level as the lowest of the indigenous people".
