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Big Fish in Small Ponds: The Exercise of Power in a Nineteenth-century Philippine Municipality1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Greg Bankoff
Greg Bankoff
Affiliation:
Murdoch University
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Extract

The basic administrative unit in the Spanish Philippines was the pueblo or municipal township. The pueblo encompassed both settled and unsettled districts within its geographical boundaries. The town centre Known as the población was the largest single residential zone within the municipality but was surrounded by smaller satellite communities. Beyond these areas of settlement were the sparsely populated regions of swamp, forest, plain or mountain. Size varied enormously both in geographical extent and population density from a few hundred families clustered in a single village or barangay in frontier areas to many tens of thousands of persons spread over a number of settlements in the lowland provinces of Luzon and the central Visayas.2 The administrative boundaries of one pueblo, however, bordered upon another so that all areas under Spanish suzerainty fell within one or other of these municipalities.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 679 - 700
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

2 Corpuz, Onofre D., The Bureaucracy in the Philippines (Manila: University of the Philippines Press, 1957), 108.Google Scholar ‘In this class of towns the most notable are the following: Tondo, with 13,424 souls; Binondoc, 22,570; Tambobo, 21,378; Pasig, 14,465; Malolos, 19,655; Vigan, 17,320; Pavay, 14,840; Lavag [Laoag], 25,242; Bacarra, 13,064; Balayan, 18,631; Taal, 23,526; Banan, 17,438; Batangas, 19,566; Cabatuan, 17,359; Xaro, 14,911.’ Manuel Bernaldez Pizarro, ‘Reforms needed in Filipinas’, Madrid , 26 April 1827, in Blair, Emma and Robertson, James Alexander (eds), The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898 (Mandaluyong: Cacho Hermanos, 1973), 51: 198–9. Steps were only begun during the 1830s to create new municipalities but many continued to be in excess of 20,000 even in the 1880s. Montero y Vidal recorded three pueblos in excess of 30,000 inhabitants: Laoag (Ilocos Norte) 36,639; San Miguel (Bulacán) 34,672; and Bauang (Batangas) 33,106.Google ScholarVidal, José Montero y, El Archipiélago Filipino Y Las Islas Marianas, Carolinas Y Palaos. Su Historia, Geografia Y Estadística (Madrid: Imprenta Y Fundición De Manuel Tello, 1886), 322.Google Scholar

3 There were 746 Parishes, 105 mission parishes and 116 active missions in 1898 distributed between the five dioceses: 219 parishes, 24 mission parishes and 16 active missions in Manila; 166 parishes, 15 mission parishes and 32 active missions in Cebu; 144 parishes, 23 mission parishes and 33 missions in Jaro; 110 parishes, 20 mission parishes and 35 active mission in Nueva Segovia; and 107 parishes, 17 mission parishes and 17 mission parishes in Nueva Caceres. Fernandez, Pablo, History of the Church in the Philippines (1521–1898) (Manila: National Book Store, 1979), 42–3.Google Scholar

4 The gobernadorcillo was assisted by a number of subordinate officials drawn from families of the same social status as himself who exercised limited authority over certain aspects of municipal affairs. The cabeza de barangay whose jurisdiction was restricted to a particular village and the jueces de sementeras, ganados and policia who were responsible respectively for boundary disputes, the branding of livestock and police matters.

5 Election of municipal officials during the nineteenth century took place under article 79 of the Ordenanza de Buen Gobierno of 26 February 1768 and subsequent amendments. In the presence of the provincial governor or his delegate and the parish priest, twelve electors chosen by chance—six from among the incumbent cabezas de barangay and six from among former gobernadorcillos or cabezas de barangay of ten years’ service—together with the presiding gobernadorcillo each cast a ballot on which was written the names of two candidates. A list or terna was then prepared comprising the names of the two candidates who had received the most votes with that of the present gobernadorcillo in third position. These names were then forwarded to the Governor-General who usually confirmed in office the first candidate on the terna. See : Artigas, Manual, El Municipio Filipino. Compilación de cuanto se ha prescrito, e historia municipal de Filipinas desde los primeros tiempos de la Dominació Espanola (Manila: Establecimiento Tipo-Litográfico de Ramirez y Compañia, 1894, segunda edición), 11–12.Google Scholar

6 Where their numbers warranted, mainly in Manila and other large population centres, separate gremios existed for both Chinese mestizos and Chinese. In such cases, members of these communities could appeal to have their suits tried by the gobernadorcillo of their own gremio, a procedure which gave rise to overlapping jurisdictions.

7 A further extension of eight days was granted if required. Espinosa, Diego de los Monteros, El Procedimiento Criminal. Compilación de disposiciones sobre enjuciamiento en Filipinas (Manila: Imprenta Litográfia Partier, 1897), 65–6.Google Scholar

8 Mora, Juan Caro y, La Situactión del Pais. Colección de articulos publicados por “La Voz Española” acerca de la insurreción tagala, sus causas principales, cuestiones que afectan a Filipinas (Manila: Imprenta de “Amigos del Pais”, 1897), 81–2, and Corpuz, Bureaucracy in the Philippines, 106–7. The attributes and duties of the office of gobernadorcillo were formidable. The following extract is taken from the formal document of appointment issued by the Governor-General in which the gobernadorcillo was charged ‘…with the necessary obligation of effectively ensuring that the town residents attended mass on days of holy obligation and observed the doctrine and yearly obligations of our Holy Mother Church, concerning which particular he will aid the parish priest; that there are no prohibited games, drunkenness, scandals or other public disturbances, maintaining the town in peace and justice; that no one uses weapons without a license; that everyone dedicates themselves to agriculture, or crafts and business, without permitting idleness or bad entertainments; that they raise cows, carabaos, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and other useful animals, and plant rice, wheat, maize, vegetables, sugarcane, coffee, pepper, cotton, indigo, white mulberry trees, cacao, coconuts and other fruit trees, as is advised by ordinances and repeated orders of the Governor-General: finally it will be one of their primary responsibilities to care for the maintenance of the high-roads and public ways, zealously repairing them or immediately reconstructing those that have been destroyed, to which he will strictly oblige all the town's inhabitants, both indios and mestizo, to work at in the terms that are so ordered: he will hear civil suits, according to the laws, and the same with criminal matters. He will observe what is ordered about security and the branding of liverstock without delay, and pursue all types of thieves until caught. He will attend to the prompt and faithful collection of tributes and other taxes of the Royal Treasury, as well as local community funds…’. Caro y Mora, La Situación del Pais, 81–2.Google Scholar

9 Cushner, Nicholas P., Spain in the Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1971), 218.Google Scholar

10 Jesus, Edilberto de, The Tobacco Monopoly in the Philippines. Bureaucratic Enterprise and Social Change, 1766–1880 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1980), 120;Google ScholarRobles, Eliodoro, The Philippines in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1969), 82; and Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, 218.Google Scholar

11 De Jesus, Tobacco Monopoly, 120, and Robles, The Philippines, 83. It seems that people were prepared to pay municipal officials to have the names of relatives or even servants removed from the list of those eligible for military conscription. Both the gobernadorcillo and a cabeza de barangay of the town of Barás in Morong were fined ninety and sixty pesos respectively for this offence in November 1888. See: ‘Es muy delicado’, El Comercio, 14 November 1888.Google Scholar

12 Charges, it seemed, might be levied for crossing a bridge or erecting a stall in the market place. Cushner, , Spain in the Philippines, 218, and Robles, The Philippines, 84.Google Scholar

13 De Jesus, Tobacco Monopoly, 120. Sinibaldo de Mas noted the practice in 1842 whereby cabezas de barangay demanded the additional payment of ‘the stipend of the father’, a religious tax that could amount to six gantas of rice per person, after the sum had already been included in what had previously been paid. Mas, Sinibaldo de, ‘State of the Philippine Islands in 1842’, in Blair, and Robertson, (eds), The Philippine Islands, 28: 250.Google Scholar Miguel Casia Julian, cabeza de barangay of Narvacan in Ilocos Sur, was accused in 1855 of having his bondsman and agent collect tributes from certain persons who were not officially domiciled at all. ‘Sumaria instruida contra el Cabeza de Barangay, Dn. Miguel Casia Julian sobre ocultacion de tributos por denuncia de Dn. Prospero Veloria’, 3 January 1856, Philippine National Archive (PNA), Expedientes Gobernativos, 1841–1891.Google Scholar

14 Robles, , The Philippines, 81, and de Jesus, Tobacco Monopoly, 119.Google Scholar

15 José Ferrer, ‘Expediente en que se trata de promover las siembras de Cagayan hasta el grado de perfección posible; formar un reglamento que fije las respectives funciones de los empleados de aquella colección y medios quen pueden ponerse en planta para evitar en lo sucesivo lae vejaciones á que han expuestos los naturales de dicha provincia por varios de sus colectores…’, Pieza 2a, 1831, PNA, Tobacco Monopoly.Google Scholar

16 Cases involving the misconduct of Spanish officials were originally heard in the first instance by the Governor-General with appeals to the Real Audiencia and subsequently to the Council of the Indies, but a law of 9 October 1812 gave jurisdiction for cases involving provincial magistrates to the high court in the first instance. Cunningham, Charles Henry, The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies. As Illustrated by the Audiencia of Manila (1583–1800) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1919), 101–2. Complaints brought by individuals against magistrates were not admissible without sufficient corresponding evidence to substantiate the charges. The judge in question could not be suspended from his duties until the merits of the case had been determined by the high court, nor arrested unless the gravity of the case should demand such a course of action. ‘Estudios Juridicos Filipinos: Audiencias’, El Comercio, 11 September 1886. Needless to say, heavy penalties were imposed on those making unsubstantiated charges. Cunningham, The Audiencia, 121.Google Scholar

17 Corpuz, , Bureaucracy in the Philippines, 99.Google Scholar

18 While Fr. Villegas refuted the notion that priests exercised direct political or civil functions under the Spanish Crown in their parishes, he admitted that they did wield actual authority in many ways: ‘The following may be mentioned as among the principal duties or powers exercised by the parish priest: He was inspector of primary schools; president of the health board and board of charities; president of the board of urban taxation (this was established lately); inspector of taxation; previously he was the actual president, but lately the honorary president, of the board of public works. He certified to the correctness of cedulas–seeing that they conformed to the entries in the parish books. They did not have civil registration here and so they had to depend upon the books of the parish priest. These books were sent in for the purpose of this cedula taxation, but were not received by the authorities unless viséed by the priest. He was president of the board of statistics, because he was the only person who had any education. He was asked to do this work so that better results could be obtained. It was against the will of the parish priest to do this, but he could only do as he was told. If they refused, they were told they were unpatriotic, and not Spaniards. If they had declined, they would have been removed from their charge. He was president of the census taking of the town. Under the Spanish law every man had to be furnished with a certificate of character. If a man was imprisoned and he was from another town, they would send to that other town for his antecedents, and the court would examine whether they were good or bad. They would not be received, however, unless the parish priest had his visé on them. The priest also testified to the civil status of persons. …By law he had to be present when there were elections for municipal offices. Very often the parish priest did not want to go, but the people would come to him and say, “Come, for there will be disturbances and you will settle many differences”. He was censor of the municipal governor. A great many of the duties I am now enumerating were given to the priests by the municipal law of Maura. He was also counselor for the municipal counsel [sic] when that body met. They would notify him that they were going to hold a meeting and invite him to be present. The priests were supervisors of the election of the police force. This also had to be submitted to the provincial governor. He was examiner of the scholars attending the first and second grades in the public schools. He was censor of the plays, comedies and dramas in the language of the country, deciding whether they were against the public peace or the public morals. These plays were presented at the various fiestas of the people. He was a member of the provincial board. Besides the parish priest there were two curates who served on this board. Before the provincial board came all matters relating to public works and other cognate matters. All estimates for public buildings in the municipalities were submitted to this board… In some of these places there would be only the administrator [of the Hacienda], and then the curate would come in and act as auditor. Besides the above there were other small things which devolved upon the priest.’ ‘Testimony Taken by the Philippine Commission Relating to Religious Orders’ in Senate, U.S., Lands Held for Ecclesiastical or Religious Uses in the Philippine Islands, Doc. No. 190, 56th Congress, 2nd Session, 25th 02 1901 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901), 63–71.Google Scholar

19 Zamora, Matias Gomez, Regio Patronato Español Y Indiano (Madrid: Imprenta Del Asilo De Huerfanos, 1897), 510.Google Scholar

20 Foreman, John, The Philippine Islands (Mandaluyong: Cacho Hermanos, 1985), 205.Google Scholar

21 Rojas, Antonio et al. to Governor-General, Manlia, 15 February 1881, PNA, Patronatos, 1864–1898.Google Scholar

22 Riponga, Mariano to Governor of Cavite, Cavite El Viejo, 21 February 1870, PNA, Cavite, unreferenced.Google Scholar

23 Laws 4, 6, 7 and 10, Title 10, Book 1 and Law 12, Title 7, Book 1 of the Recopilaction de las Leyes de Indias.

24 Berdozido, Pablo Francisco Rodriguez de, ‘The ecclesiastical estate in the aforesaid Philipinas islands’, Manila, 1742, in Blair, and Robertson, (eds), The Philippine Islands, 47: 156.Google Scholar

25 Scott, William Henry, ‘Colonial Whip: A Filipino Response to Flogging in 1835’, in Cracks in the Parchment Curtain and Other Essays in Philippine History (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1982), 158.Google Scholar

26 Alfredo Campos to Governor-General, Manila, 19 Fevbruary 1865, PNA, Patronatos 1864–1867.Google Scholar

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28 ‘Quejo de los del pueblo de Guimbal en Iloilo contra su Cura Fr. Ramon Alvarez’, PNA, Patronatos, 1851–1863.Google Scholar

29 Alfredo Campos to Governor-General?, Manila, 1 Aug. 1861, PNA, Patronatos, 1860–1861.Google Scholar

30 Alfredo Campos to Governor-General, Manila, 19 Feb. 1865, PNA, Patronatos, 1864–1867, and ‘Quejo de los del pueblo de Guimbal’, PNA, Patronatos, 1851–1863.Google Scholar

31 ‘Expediente creado, á solicitud de los Prales. del Pueblo de Paete de la Provincia de la Laguna, manifestando ser nulos los excesos atribuidos a su Cura Parroco Fr. Jose Casamayor, y que asi mismo sea restituido á su Ministerio’, Paete, 4 May 1831, PNA, Patronatos, 1830–1848.Google Scholar

32 ‘Oficio del Provincial de San Francisco, pidiendo se apruebe la correction que ha dada al R. P. Fr. Jose Soto Cura P. del pueblo de Binangonom de Bay provincia de la Laguna’, 10. November. 1852, PNA, Patronatos, 1851–1863.Google Scholar

33 Foreman, , The Philippine Islands, 203.Google Scholar

34 The relation of Vertiz was written in 1788 as quoted in Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, 125.Google Scholar

35 Alfredo Campos to Governor-General, Manila, 19 February. 1865, PNA, Patronatos, 1864–1867.Google Scholar

36 Urban VIII's breve Ex debito of 22 February. 1633 threatened clerics engaged in trading anywhere in the East Indies, China and Japan with excommunication, deprivation of office and a ban on public speaking. Similar penalties were applied by Clement IX's breve Solicitudo of 17 June 1669, Benedict XIV's Apostolica servitutis of 25 February. 1741 and Clement XIII's Enciliele cum primum of 17 September. 1759. A priest did not even have to be personally involved in a commercial venture to become associated with one in popular imagination; the actions of family members wishing to capitalize on his social status in the community was often sufficient to condemn him in the eyes of both his parishioners and his superiors. Thus, Fr. Placido was deprived of his parish on Capiz and forced to retire to the provincial house of his order in Manila in 1857 on account of the business irregularities of his brother, Captain D. Telesforo de Alba. The court found Fr. Placido to be more at fault even than his brother because of the nature of his office and recommended that he ‘should become the principal defendant, since the reported offences, were said to have been committed in his house and with his compliance’. Pedro Lacambre to Governor-General, Manila, 14 July 1857, PNA, Patronatos, 1759–1859.Google Scholar

37 Raón, José, ‘Ordinances of Good Government’, Manila, 26 02. 1768, in Blair, and Robertson, (eds), The Philippine Islands, 50: 257–8.Google Scholar

38 Pedro Lacambre to Governor-General?, Manila, 15 July 1858, PNA, Patronatos, 1759–1859.Google Scholar

39 ‘Contra Fray Buenaventura Y., Padre Misionero de Mariones Sobre Faltas’, 19 August. 1890, AAM, Asuntos Criminales, Box 1887–1895 and 1930, File 1890B.Google Scholar

40 Salazar, Simon de Anda y, ‘Memorial to the Spanish Government’, Madrid, 12 04 1768 in Blair, and Robertson, (eds), The Philippine Islands, 50: 151.Google Scholar

41 ‘Quejo de los del pueblo de Guimbal’, PNA, Patronatos, 1851–1863. No less than four petitions were addressed to the vicario foraneo in 1852 (one in February., on 24 March, on 19 April and on 7 September.) and a letter to the Governor-General dated 1 December. 1852. The clerical faction in municipal elections is discussed at some length in: May, Glenn, ‘Civic Ritual and Political Reality: Municipal Elections in the Late-19th-Century Philippines’, in A Past Recovered (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1987), esp. 40–51.Google Scholar

42 ‘Contra Fray Buenaventura Y.’ (see fn. 39).

43 Report of the Philippine Commission to the President January 31 1900 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900), I: 62.Google Scholar

44 Corpuz, , Bureaucracy in the Philippines, 113.Google Scholar

45 Vidal, Montero y, El Archipiélago Filipino (see fn. 2), 165–6.Google Scholar

46 ‘Remarks on the Philippine Islands, and on their capital Manila, 1819 to 1822. By an Englishman’, in Blair, and Robertson, (eds), The Philippine Islands, 51: 94–5.Google Scholar

47 ibid., 95.

48 Mora, Caro y, La Situación del Pais, 133.Google Scholar

49 Phelan, John Leddy, The Hispanization of the Philippines. Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses 1565–1700 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), 59. The Spanish often shortened the term fiscalillo to fiscal but I have chosen to employ only the former title so as to avoid confusion with other officials of the latter nomenclature.Google Scholar

50 ibid., 83.

51 Rafael, Vicente L., Contracting Colonialism. Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988), 40.Google Scholar

52 Pascual, Serapio Famayo y, Idea general de la Disciplina Eclesiastica en Filipinas durante la dominacion espanola (Manila: Establecimiento Tipográfico del Colegio de Santo Tomás, 1906), 81, fns. 3 and 4, 90, fn. 3, and 90–1.Google Scholar

53 Costa, Horacio de la, The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581–1768 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 479.Google Scholar

54 Cushner, Spain in the Philippines, 79. Another ecclesiastical official with disciplinary powers was the lay administrator of the religious estates. Employees who absconded were subjected to corporal punishment and imprisonment supposedly within special estate prisons. Roth states that this practice had disappeared by the close of the eighteenth century. Roth, Dennis Morrow, The Friar Estates of the Philippines (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 54–5, 59 and 72.Google Scholar

55 Pascual, Famayo y, Idea general de la Disciplina Eclesiastica, 90, fn. 3.Google Scholar

56 Andreas Mancker to Constantin Schiel, Manila, 1682, as quoted in de la Costa, Jesuits in the Philippines, 468.

57 ‘Causa seguida contra Seberina Candelaria de Obando por Sociedad con un Diablo Familiar’, AAM, Asuntos Criminales, Box 1808–1819, File 1801–1811A, and Famayo y Pascual, 81, fns 3–4. The situation in Manila and other urban centres may have been somewhat different: neither of the fiscalillos involved in the invalid marriage of a certain Domingo de la Concepcion with Hipolita Yn-Dingco in 1847 appear to have enjoyed particularly high social status, though both were evidently literate. Roberto Vocal was described as a 36-year-old married indio born in Binondo, while Marcos Flores was 27 years old and married. Neither name was preceded by the title don. ‘Sumaria instruida contra Domingo de la Concepcion sobre el casamiento que contrajo en segundas nupcias con Hipolita Yn-Dingco, mediando entre ellos el impedimiento de adulterio’, Binondo, 28 June 1847, AAM, Asuntos Criminales, Box 1846–1855.Google Scholar

58 MacMicking, Robert, Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines during 1848, 1849, and 1850 (London: Richard Bentley, 1851), 99–100.Google Scholar

59 ‘Oficio del Provincial de San Francisco’ (see fn. 32).

60 Alfredo Campos to Governor-General, Manila, 19 February. 1865, PNA, Patronatos, 1864–1867. The priest was said to visit her residence frequently at night between the hours of six and nine o'clock and to dance with her on feast days.Google Scholar

61 Rojas, Antonio et al. to Governor-General, Manila, 15 February. 1881, PNA, Patronatos, 1864–1898.Google Scholar

62 ‘Oficio del Provincial de San Francisco’ (See fn. 32).

63 Rojas, Antonio et al. to Governor-General, Manila, 15 February. 1881, PNA, Patronatos, 1864–1898.Google Scholar

64 ibid., and ‘Oficio del Provincial de San Francisco’ (see fn. 32).

65 Foreman, , The Philippine Islands, 202–3.Google Scholar

66 Certain provinces of the Philippines were exempted from the rules governing the number of troopers. Provincial authorities in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Ecija and La Union were allowed to keep cuadrillero numbers to the barest minimum so as to maximize the manpower engaged in tobacco growing. On the other hand, Visayan authorities were empowered in consultation with the Governor-General to maintain numbers in excess of the eighty troopers permitted per town to help combat Moro depredations.

67 Reglamento para la organización, régimen y servicio de la Guardia civil de las Islas Filipinas (Manila: Imprentar Militar, 1868), vii–viii. Colonial officials were also concerned that the peasants' perception of personal insecurity was hampering agricultural production and effectively closing off some areas to cultivation.Google Scholar

68 The first tercio covering the provinces of Central Luzon (Manila province, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Tayabas, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacán and Pangasinan) was deployed in 1868; the second covering the provinces of North and South Luzon (Zambales, Bataan, Tarlac, Union, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Abra, Nueva Vizcaya, Isabela, Cagayan, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and Albay) was deployed in 1872; and the third covering the Central and Eastern Visayas (Iloilo, Capiz, Antique, Cebu, Negros and Baratoc Viejo) was deployed in 1880. As of 1887, the strength of each tercio amounted to 1, 170 men in the first tercio, 1,300 men in the second tercio, 1,040 men in the third tercio. Exposición de Filipinas: colección de articulos publicados en el Globo: diario ilustrado, politico, cientifico y literario (Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de El Globo, 1887), 154–5. The first tercio, for instance, was divided into eight companies and stationed accordingly: 1st company of 150 men in Manila province, 2nd company of 150 men in Manila province, 3rd company of 100 men in Pampanga, 4th company of 90 men in Cavite, 5th company of 140 men in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan, 6th company of 140 men in Laguna and Tayabas, 7th company of 100 men in Bulacán and the 8th company of 130 men in Batangas. ‘Cuadro organico de la fuerza del tercio de Guardia civil’ (see fn. 67), Appendix.Google Scholar

69 The eight companies of the first tercio of the Guardia Civil were divided into sections accordingly: 1st company into 5 sections of 30 men on average; 2nd section into 6 sections of 25 men on average; 3rd company into 4 sections of 25 men on average; 4th company into 30 men on average; 5th company into 6 sections of approximately 23 men on average; 6th company into 6 sections of approximately 23 men on average; 7th company into 4 sections of 25 men on average; and the 8th company into 4 sections of approximately 33 men on average. ‘Cuadro organico de la fuerza del tercio de Guardia civil’, Reglamento para la organización (see fn. 67), Appendix.

70 ‘Reglamento Para El Servicio Especial De La Guardia Civil’, articles I and 5, ch. 2, in Reglamento de la Guardia civil (Manila: Imprenta Amigos del Pais, 1880), 19–22.Google Scholar

71 Worcester, Dean C., The Philippines: Past and Present (New York: Macmillan Company, 1914), I: 378–9.Google Scholar

72 ‘Un malhechor’, El Eco De Panay, 25 February. 1890.Google Scholar

73 ‘Criminal Famoso’, El Eco De Panay, 27 July 1895.Google Scholar

74 Alcaldes of the hermandad had been accorded such rights as early as 1476. Maclachlan, Colin M., Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. A Study of the Tribunal of the Acordada (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 11.Google Scholar

75 Such as when a certain Sotero attempted to rape Catalina Lopez as she was walking in a barrio of Laspiñas de Manila on 17 June 1880. Catalina made good her escape and ran to the house of the settlement's teniente de justicia who immediately took her before the local section commander of the Guardia Civil. The latter registered her complaint and then dispatched a pair of guards to arrest Sotero. ‘Violación Tentativa’, PNA, Varias Provincias, Cavite.Google Scholar

76 Just such an example occurred on the afternoon of 2 August 1887. The sergeant commanding a section of the Guardia Civil in or near Vigan in Ilocos Sur received a denuncia reservada that an illegal game of monte was taking place at the house of a certain Antonio Fabio. Immediately acting on this information, the sergeant led a detachment of guards to the house where, while still a short way off, he witnessed various individuals leaping from the windows and terraced roof of Fabio's house. The householder was arrested and questioned before being turned over to the courts. Captain José Capdepon to Civil Governor of Ilocos Sur, Vigan, 3 August. 1887, PNA, Guardia Civil, 1864–1898.Google Scholar

77 Grossman, Theodore, ‘The Guardia Civil and its Influence on Philippine Society’, Archiviniana, 12 1972, 6.Google Scholar

78 Worcester, , The Philippines: Past and Present, I: 378.Google Scholar