MIGUEL BENAVIDES
The
cause for the rights of the natives was not buried with the mortal remains of
the good bishop. The torch was passed on to Benavides. He bravely assumed the
role of being the protector of the natives, and questioned before the court the
various colonial policies in the islands. Seeing his brilliance, Philip II
nominated Benavides to be the first bishop of the newly created diocese of
Nueva Segovia.[1]
In
a meeting with Philip II, Benavides presented to the king two memorials. One of
these was the Instrucciones para el
gobierno de las Filipinas. This treatise included the requirement for
collecting tributes and the right of preaching the Gospel. On March 20, 1596,
the king asked the Council of the Indies to deal with the matters that
Benavides confided to him. Together with the council would be the confessor of
the King, Prince Philip, and the Superiors of the Jesuits, who would discuss
and decide upon the said matter, in finality. On October 1596, the Council
signed and forwarded their recommendation to the King. And on February 8, 1597,
the King issued a royal cedula addressed to the Governor General of the
Islands. It instructed the said Governor General to fulfill the laws of the
tributes and to provide for the restitution of the ill-gotten tributes imposed
on the natives. It also instructed the Governor to organize a popular
plebiscite in the Islands, by which the natives would express freely and
voluntarily their acceptance of Spanish sovereignty.[2]
In
that same fateful year, 1597, Benavides joyously took the journey back to the Islands
with the royal cedula in hand, a trophy of victory for the cause of the
natives, long fought for by Salazar and his confreres. On May 1598, He arrived
in Manila and presented the royal cedula to the Governor General Francisco
Tello. On August 4, 1598, the Governor
called for a meeting together with other civil authorities and ecclesiastics.
Before them, the royal was read and all were resolved to obey the orders of the
King: to seek the voluntary submission of the natives to the King, and to
implement the rules of collecting tributes from the natives.
PHILIPPINE REFERENDUM OF 1599
The
Philippine Referendum took place in 1599. The main objective of the referendum
was to ask verbally the representatives of the native populace whether they
wanted the king of Spain to be their ruler or not.[3]
The
results of the referendum can be accessed through the records kept by the
Public Notary of the Insular Government Gaspar de Acebo and from the report by
Governor Francisco Tello, sent to Madrid on July 12, 1599. Tello reported:
Instruction and
directions have been sent to the alcades-mayores and to the religious in all
the provinces, that by the gracious methods, which your majesty directs,
submission shall be rendered to your majesty. In the province of Ylocos, in the
diocese of the bishop of Nueva Segovia, this was very well done; and submission
was rendered to your majesty. Likewise the whole district of Manila, a mission
of the Augustinian fathers, has rendered submission. La Laguna, in charge of
the Franciscan fathers, has not easily yielded; for the natives there have asked
a year’s time in which to answer; and I have left La Laguna in this state,
until I should give an account of it to your majesty, as you direct me. The
same thing will be done in the other provinces, which ask delays. Thus far I am
not informed of what has been done.[4]
With
such report form Governor Tello, and others that came from Benavides and other
ecclesiastics who helped in implementing the royal cedula, it can be said that
the king’s desire to legitimize his sovereignty over the islands had been
realized, in the manner proposed by the Dominicans, led by Salazar and
Benavides. Indeed, the Philippine Referendum of 1599 was a concretization of
the principles of justice and human rights proclaimed by Vitoria and de las
Casas, which were championed by Salazar and Benavides in this part of the
world.
CONCLUSION
The
Spanish friar-missionaries brought Catholicism to the Philippines. It came to
the islands accompanied by the sword borne by the Spanish conquistadores and
encomenderos. These civil authorities would inflict injustice on the natives
and would assert the sovereignty of the Spanish king over the islands. In the
midst of this inequality and disregard for human dignity, the
friar-missionaries did not remain silent. They became the voice of the natives,
defending them against the abuses of their fellow Spaniards and of the native
principalias as well. Foremost among these missionary- defenders of the natives
were the Dominicans.
The
Dominicans, led by Salazar and Benavides, responded to the problems of their
generation in a manner they were best at. They responded in a peculiar, often
persistent manner, always faithful to what they believed was true, founded on
sound doctrines and loyalty to the Church and to God. Such was the Dominican way
Salazar and Benavides employed. When other friar-missionaries succumbed to the
prevailing system of injustices and ill manner of evangelization, the
Dominicans stood their ground on the principles studied and proposed by their
forebears in the University of Salamanca (Francisco de Vitoria) and their
experiences in the Americas (Bartome de las Casas). They drew strength and
encouragement from each other in their struggle for the rights of others.
Truly, it was providential that when Salazar was almost persuaded to take a
compromise on the legitimacy of the conquest and collection of tributes from
the natives, to the disadvantage of the natives, his confreres arrived. His
passion and zeal in defending the natives was reinvigorated by the zeal of
these Dominicans. Placing all their efforts in the hands of God, this first
barcada of Dominicans succeeded in building the Church in the Philippines,
based on justice, giving prominence to the dignity of every human person.
Bibliography
Articles
Gayo
Aragon, J., OP. “The Controversy over Justification of Spanish Rule in the
Philippines.” in Studies in Philippine
Church History, ed. Gerald H. Anderson, 3-21. New York: Cornell University
Press, 1969.
Gutierrez,
Lucio, OP. “Domingo de salazar’s Struggle for Justice and Humanization I the
Conquest of the Philippines (1579-1594).” Philippiana
Sacra vol. XIV, no. 41, May-August 1979: 219-281.
Villaroel,
Fidel, OP. “Philip II and the Philippine Referendum of 1599.” Unitas, vol. 73, no. 1, March 2000:
9-50.
Books
Anales Ecclesiasticos
de Philipinas 1574-1682,
vol. 1. trans. Ruperto C. Santos. Manila: Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila,
1994.
Blair,
Emma Helen and James Alexander Robertson, eds. The Philippine Islands 1493-1803. 55 vols., Mandaluyong: Cachos
Hermanos, Inc. 1973.
General
History of the Philippines, Part 1, vol. 4, The
Synod of Manila 1582, ed. Jose Luis Porras. trans. Corita Barranco et al.
Quezon City: Historical Conservation Society, 1990.
Gutierrez,
Lucio, OP. Domingo de Salazar, OP.
Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 2001.
Schumacher,
John N. SJ. Growth and Decline: Essays on
Philippine Church History. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2009.
______.
Readings in the Philippine Church History.
Quezon City: Loyola School of Theology-Ateneo de Manila University, 1979.
The
Synod of Manila of 1582: The Draft of its Handbook for Confessors. trans. Paul
Arvisu Dumol. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2014.
Villaroel,
Fidel, OP. Miguel de Benavides, OP.
1550-1605: Friar, Bishop and University Founder. Manila: University of
Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2005.
[1] Nueva Segovia is the name of the archdiocese now located in
the venerable and historic town of Vigan in Ilocos Sur. The town of Vigan was
founded by Juan de Salcedo, a grandson of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi who founded
the city of Manila. Salcedo went to the Ilocos in northern Luzon to put up a
military settlement in Vigan in 1572. In 1574 he established a Spanish
residence in the poblacion in honor of Prince Ferdinand, the first born son of
King Philip II of Spain, and named it Villa Fernandina. The city of Nueva
Segovia, however, was founded in 1581 by Pablo Carreon in the Cagayan Valley,
near the mouth of the Ibanag River (Rio Grande de Cagayan). Nueva Segovia,
named after the old city of Segovia in Spain, was the capital and principal
port of the region. As a diocese Nueva Segovia was canonically erected by Pope
Clement VIII with a papal bull on August 14, 1595 with Miguel de Benavides, OP,
as its first bishop. Its territorial jurisdiction extended over all the
provinces of northern Luzon. It was placed under the principal patronage of the
Immaculate Concepcion of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Together with the diocese of
Cebu and Caceres, it was made a suffragan to the new Archdiocese of Manila. Because
of distance and the need for a site at the center of the diocese, the See of
Nueva Segovia was transferred to Vigan in 1758 at the request of Bishop Juan de
la Fuente Yepes, during the pontificate of Benedict XIV. The city of Nueva
Segovia was slowly being washed away by the river. Vigan, on the other hand, was
rising as a center of Spanish culture, politics and economy. The bishops
therefore preferred to stay in Vigan. The villa then became Ciudad Fernandina
de Vigan in honor of the reigning king of Spain (Archdiocese of Nueva
Segovia from http://www.cbcponline.net/jurisdictions/nueva_segovia.html
accessed on February 24, 2016).
[2]
Villaroel, Philip II and the “Philippine Referendum”of 1599, p. 24.
[3]
Villaroel, Philip II and the “Philippine Referendum”of 1599, p. 28.
[4] BRPI vol.10, pp. 253-255.
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