FINAL: MODULE 1

MONASTI SUPREMACY

MARCELO H. DEL PILAR'S La Soberenia Monacal en Filipinas, first published in Barcelona, Spain,
in 1889, and reprinted in Manila in 1898
(Translated by Dr. Encarnacion Alzona in 1957)

Source: Del Pilar, M. H. and Alzona, E. (1958). (La soberania monacal en Filipinas. Monastic
supremacy in the Philippines. Translated from the Spanish by Encarnacion Alzona. Quezon City:
Philippine Historical Association.

The following are excerpts from Marcelo H. Del Pilar's La Soberenia Monacal en Filipinas,
first published in Barcelona, Spain, in 1889, and reprinted in Manila in 1898. Its publication in
Spain was hailed by Spanish liberals and former Spanish administrators in the Philippines,
including former governor-general Emilio Terrero (1885-1888) and Benigno Quiroga, former
director general of the civil administration in the Philippines, and such scholars as Miguel Morayta
and Ferdinand Bluementritt. Jose Rizal, the most cultured of the reformist group called Del Pilar's
work as one that had "no chaff; it is all grain." The following translation was made by Dr.
Encarnacion Alzona in 1957.

ITS POLITICAL ASPECT

The interference of the friars in the government of the Philippines is so ingrained that
without difficulty the friars control the status quo of the country in defiance of the nation and the
institutions.

In charge of almost all the parishes, their parochial mission takes on the double character
of a political organ and popular patronage. This mission gives the curate great power in each
locality; and this power, as it does not lose its monastic character, is at the command of the regular
prelates under whose guidance the parish priests think, preach, confess, and act with marvelous
uniformity.

Perhaps the guarantee of the moderating power of the parish priests may be self to
society to balance and harmonize the interests of the people and the institutions; but the fact is
that the convents are opposed to this equilibrium and harmony.

The hatred and distrust between both elements constitute the life of the convents. To
frighten the government with the rebelliousness of the country and frighten the country with the
despotism of the government that is the system that the friars have so skillfully evolved to be able
to rule at the expense of everyone.

They offer the government to suppress the country's rebelliousness and the government
gives them all its autocratic support, going to the extreme if the friars so demand, while they
portray the ruler as the personification of tyranny and despotism. They offer the people to soften
that tyranny and the people place its wealth in their hands so that they may defend them against
official rapacity.

The basis of monastic wealth is the lack of union between the people and the government
and it is necessary to foster it by fanning the resentment of the first and the despotism of the
second. To achieve this, they count on the diversity of languages among the rulers and the ruled;
and to preserve that diversity, to impede popular education, and to avoid at any cost that the
people and the government come to understand each other, are the best way of keeping them in
perpetual antagonism.

In the Philippines, however, religious amortization is very conspicuous. Ignorance and

fanaticism encouraged by the monastic institutions and ignoring the claims of blood relations as
if they were contrary to divine law have been responsible for centuries for the immense number
of disinherited families. The best lands, the best estates, thus passed to the control of monastic
communities.

Today the convents are the millionaires of the country; their large funds cannot be
alienated. Their lands are cultivated without the stimulus of the owners and with discouragement
on the part of the tillers. They are leased and the rent increases from time to time and in
proportion to the improvements introduced on the land. On more than one occasion the voice of
poverty has exhaled touching complaints; but who listens to the voice of poverty? Monastic
properties are subject to land titles of ten percent and the increase in their income ought to
favour the government treasury, but does it perchance?

We don't know. The government finance office relies on the sworn statement of the
convents, and what official would dare verify that Olympics declaration, as in view of monastic
predominance government employees are daily in danger of losing their positions? In the year
1887 the provincial government of Laguna tried to get information about the increase in the
income of the lands in Calamba belonging to the Dominican friars. It found out that the annual
income of five thousand pesos has been sextupled, amounting to more than thirty thousand
pesos. The finance office learned about it; and nothing more.

The Filipinos pay direct taxes consisting of the personal cedula, urban tax, industrial
subsidy and additional municipal tax, provincial tax, and personal loan; and besides these, the
indirect one of the markets, vehicles, horses, stamps and surcharges, slaughter of cattle, river
tolls, and others. Well then; besides the direct and indirect taxes there exists another which,
though it does not figure in the financial plan of the Philippines, nevertheless is a burden on her
interests.

This is what we would call the tax of the religious festivals. The papal decree of 2 May
1867 aimed to relieve the Filipino Catholics of this burden by reducing the number of feast days
and ordering that each diocese have only one patron saint to be named by the Holy See, and in
fact this was done. But it is evident that the will of the Pope is ineffective and impotent so far as
the regular curates in the Philippine Archipelago are concerned.

Each parish church has a tutelary patron of the town besides the patron saint of one or
more confraternities and patron saints of secondary importance venerated in some churches
according to the curate's devotion. Their respective saint's days are celebrated with pomp at the
expense of the people. For each celebration are collected large sums of novena, masses, sermons,
processions, music, bands, singers, sacristans, bell-ringing, bell-men, curtains, altars, silver
candelabra, chandeliers, candles, and the like. During these celebrations the townspeople have
to keep open house, entertaining lavishly. In addition, there are fireworks of thousands of
skyrockets that reduce to smoke the savings of the fervent devotee

Aside from these numerous and costly festivals, in every district where fifty families dwell,
a chapel is erected at a cost of at least one thousand pesos; there are some costing five, ten, and
fifteen thousand pesos. The dues of the stole and the foot of the altar are a legitimate source of
revenue of the priesthood. They are not just mere alms as they think, they are a just
remuneration; Jesus Christ and common sense declare that he who works deserves to eat.

But the exaggerating collection of some dues without the sanction of Jesus Christ hurt the
interests of the Catholics and leads them to impious reflections and to inquire in the light of
economics about the productive value of this social element whose manifestations are purely
those of the consumer.

The Reverend Fathers are empowered to name the persons who ought to be deported;
and the Government solemnly declares that the parish curate's opinion suffices so that the
deportation may not be arbitrary.

It is no longer fanaticism that builds this opulence, no: it is fear of the group which has
been raised to the power which, with no one stroke of the pen or a low whisper, can kill the
happiness of one who obstructs or does not cooperate in the development of its schemes of
exploitation.
ITS RELIGIOUS ASPECT

In the performance of their duties, the municipal officials depend on the parish priest. To
report the conduct of a citizen the testimony of one hundred members of the Principalia is not
enough. The essential requirement is the curate's approval. The signature of the curate is
necessary to the census of residents in a municipality, to the conscription of eligible young men,
to formalize accounts and other official documents; to everything and for everything the curate's
signature is an essential requisite.

On the other hand, there exists no ruling prescribing the conditions under which the
curate should grant or withhold his approval. The curate approves it or denies it, according to his
will or the order of his prelates.

Supreme orders are carried out if the crate so pleases. If the superior authority tries to
demand an energetic enforcement of his orders, the curate informs the prelate of his convent and
this one obtains dismissal of the public official. His powerful argument which produces a magical
effect is that national integrity is in danger.

The foundation of a building is to be laid and the curate does not like it, then national
integrity is in danger; public health demands that the corpses should not be brought into the
churches, well nothing, national integrity is in danger. And the same litany in everything.

The guarantee of national integrity is not the church nor can it be in the friars, it is in the
same popular aspiration of fusing and identifying the interests of the Philippines with those of
the country that gave her political life, that shaped and educated her to be worthy of modern
civilization and sheltered her from the covetousness of foreign nations.

To consolidate the fraternity between Spain and Philippines is the best defense of national
integrity; it is Spain's ideal; it is the dream of the Philippines. If the divisive plan of the friars offers
advantages to monastic exploitation, it however jeopardizes the future of the Philippines as well
as the highest interest of both countries.

Even if we assume that the divisive plan of the friars succeeds and for the reason the
antagonism between the rules and the ruled intensifies, what means of pacification do the
convents offer? They will not be the government forces, for in the case the power of monastic
saddles would not be necessary. Neither can they command public opinion. This rejects them:
the cry for the immediate expulsion of the friars is unanimous. And above all if the friars command
public opinion, from whom will come the danger to national integrity?
 Ah, let the government consider that, let Spain consider that. As for us, we don't believe
it prudent to leave national integrity in the hands of the friars. Neither it is good for the reigning
monarch nor for any political interest does that monasticism continue to be the arbiter of the fate
of Spain in the Philippine Islands.

ITS ECONOMIC ASPECT

The laws that regulate the foundation and development of convents in the Philippines are
undoubtedly based on the belief that monastic life is unproductive. Numerous are the regulations
pertaining to the manner of supplying their need for wine, oil, and other things of the kind

But the abundance found in the convents makes laughable the pity of the government.
The Philippine government lacks resources to undertake public works, on the other hand, the
monastic orders build grand and costly convents in Manila and in each parish of three thousand
souls, they erect a spacious palace for the residence of the regular curate.
The government establishes primary schools in each town. The government houses are made of
light materials, like those destined for the tribunal which hardly approximate the stable of the
friar curators.

The government finds a thousand obstacles in collecting taxes from the tax-paying public;
but the monastic orders empty without the difficulty the purse of the same public in return for
heavenly promises
The government worries about meeting its peremptory financial needs, but the monastic
treasuries are overflowing with money so that their only worry is how to send away from the
country their copious savings that foster the banking interest of foreign trade.

The government refrains from creating new sources of revenue in order not to burden
Filipino interests, but the friars invent every day new forms of devotion, some very costly, and the
public pay, not because of fanaticism, but rather, for fear of displeasing the friars whose power
they know has sent many innocent victims to exile.

Because of this, there is a notable contrast between the poverty of the government and
the opulence of the vow of poverty. Let us analyze this economic phenomenon.

The amortization of lands is fatal to agriculture everywhere. Experience and economics

have shown the needs for laws of disentail. In the countries where such wise measures have been
adopted, capital was immediately channeled to greater and better production. The sale of
religious objects that rise in price by reason of priestly blessing constitutes a true and indisputable
simony; and notwithstanding, one of the principal sources of income of the monastic order is the
trade in religious objects.

The ready-made belt without priestly blessing costs and is sold at four or five pesos a
hundred, but the moment the priest blesses it and the belt passes on to the class of spiritual
things and becomes an object of papal and Episcopal indulgences, from that moment the price
rises one hundred per cent at least. To the new member of confraternity, it is sold at sixty-two
cents, four eights of a peso each belt, the price going down until twenty-five cents minimum when
the buyer is an old customer.

What is true of belts is also true of scapulars of the Recollect fathers, of the rosaries of
Dominican fathers, of the cords of the Franciscan friars, and of various others too many to
enumerate.