The Manila Synod of 1582: Cases and abuses in the Philippine Islands
In the study of Philippine history one faces an obstruction impassable to the majority of
students. This is the matter of sources of information. In the colonial enterprises of Spain in the
sixteenth century its conquistadores (conquerors) showed a spirit of Vandalism which scholars
should regret about. In their conquests in South America and in the Canaries, the conquerors
showed greed in destroying all evidences of civilization within their reach. Filipinos had no
written history before the Spanish contact , nor is there evidence of any indigenous account of
their past, apart from the legends in the orally transmitted epics that survived long enough to be
recorded. We began to search our past, our own writing, to understand the events that happened
during the past. We may have a remaining written works, but some of it is just translations.
The Manila Synod of 1582: The Draft of Its Handbook for Confessors is Paul Arvisu
Dumol's publication of his translation of the two drafts of what was purportedly to be a
handbook for the use of confessors in late–sixteenth-century Philippines. It is a remarkable work
that will benefit not only historians and theologians but also ultimately and hopefully the public
that is interested to gain a deeper understanding of the development of the Filipino people under
Spanish rule and care. Going through the background of this translation, The two manuscripts,
the Suma de Una Junta kept in the Dominican archives in Manila and the Junta y
Congregación found in the Jesuit archives in Rome, both give a summary, varying in length and
style, of the 1582 Synod of Manila's acts or synodal acts and decrees pertaining to matters of
justice and compiled explicitly in accordance with the synod's own purpose for the guidance of
confessors in solving moral cases and abuses in the Philippines.
The reason also, why we don’t have any written works, articles pertaining to the
Filipinos, and only to the good side of the Spanish rule was because to guard against the laxity of
Spanish officials tasked with the welfare and evangelization of the natives, and against
pusillanimity on the part of church people tasked with the care of souls, through the special
pedagogical and compelling power of the confessional.
All documents that contain the full proceedings of the synod were burned in the fire that
gutted Manila in 1583, and even the drafts here translated are incomplete. The manuscripts
represent only the first part of the intended confessors' handbook. Although written differently in
terms of style they both reflect the orientation, scope, sequence, and thoroughness of what must
have been the synod's actual treatment of the pressing subject on justice and the rights of the
natives during the particularly difficult early years of the colonization of the islands when
colonial policy from the crown was just emerging by bits and pieces. The subsistence economy
of the country then did not make it easy for the colonists who expected to make a fortune and
have a good life in the islands.
When Bishop Domingo de Salazar, OP, was troubled, deeply troubled, by the multiple
reports of the abuses Filipinos suffered at the hands of Spanish soldiers,guardia civil, and other
functionaries, he convoked a synod of the clergy a.k.a. the First Manila Synod of 1582, which
was later confirmed by Pope Gregory XIII, in order to address the problems. Salazar drew a line
in the sand and pointed out to the Spanish functionaries the limit of their authority, and that limit
was characterized by social justice for the less privileged. His efforts and those of other
missionaries tempered the ruthlessness that often marred the Spanish governance of our people.
The diocesan Synod of Manila in 1582 was convened soon after the arrival of Domingo
de Salazar, OP, the first bishop of the entire archipelago. The synod was the assembly of the
bishop and his advisers, composed of both religious and diocesanclergy, along with competent
laymen who were invited as resource persons on the rights and duties of everyone in the colony
and the abuses thereof. The synod was clearly the platform for Salazar's crusading stand for the
rights of the indios in the vein of his colleagues in spirit Francisco de Vitoria, OP, in Salamanca,
Bartolome de las Casas, OP, in the West Indies, and Juan de Zumárraga, OFM, in Mexico. It was
from Mexico whence Salazar was plucked by the King of Spain to be the first bishop of the
farthest royal colony in Asia. Etymologically, the name “Filipinas”, or “Philippines,” which
means “islands of Felipe” refers to King Philip II of Spain. The name “Filipinas” was given by a
Spaniard Ruy Lopez de Villalobos. Before Rizal, no one proclaimed himself a Filipino because
the Spanish addressed the natives as Indios. The indigenous peoples of the Philippines were
referred to as Indios (for those of pure Austronesian descent) and negritos. Indio was a general
term applied to native Austronesians as a legal classification; it was only applied to Christianised
natives who lived in proximity to the Spanish colonies.
As what we all know, the Spain, the most powerful state at the time, saw some cultures as
“second-class civilizations,” a subculture that distanced the conquerors “from the reality of a
people” and separated them from the natives, surely a “disrespect of humankind”.
The beginning of the colonization of the Philippines in the late 16th century was marred
by abuses and acts of injustice committed by Spanish civil authorities upon the natives. The
colonizers used force in the pacification, and collected excessive tributes in the name of the
Spanish King. Worth noting however is that there were people of conscience among the
Spaniards who raised their voices in defense of the colonized.
This book translation present the role of the Dominicans in the beginning of the
colonization of the Philippines in late 16th century, and consequently their role in building the
Church in the Philippines-- a Church built on a solid foundation based on justice and the true
dignity of man, as Christ so desired in the beginning of time.
The first treats of persons and things and customs or abuses that impede this conversion
and of those who have the obligation to assist in it; the second treats of the main topic already
mentioned, which is the manner, care and diligence which should be observed to carry out and
pursue better the conversion of these souls.
The first item discussed by the Synod was the legitimacy of the conquest of the islands by
the Spanish crown, thus questioning the right of the King of Spain in the islands. This is the most
delicate of all the problems and also the fundamental. For if the king’s sovereignty was not based
on a just title, then all the other jurisdictional acts of the conquistadores, governors,
encomenderos were in valid. For all of them claimed to act on the authority they had received
from the king and in his name. The members of the synod resolve such problem by declaring
that the King of Spain does not possess these Islands neither by inheritance, nor by donation nor
by right of a just war. The captains and soldiers, the governor and the judges have no more right
over these islands than the right given to them by the King of Spain; and the King did not give
them more authority than what he received from the Pope; and the Pope could not have given the
king more than what he received from Christ, that is the command and the right of going or
sending people anywhere in the world for the purpose of preaching the Gospel. But the preaching
of the Gospel does permit one to use force in proclaiming a message based on love, or else the
preaching of the Gospel will be a contrary to the very message it would like to communicate.
The fact that other people are afraid to tell something that could expose someone is
something can’t be avoided for they have no power, connections and money unlike them. They
rather not disturb their peace, than to make critical remarks. Although there are many causes and
reasons for learned men always to put in much doubt that Spaniards’ possession of the lands of
the Indians , all of them are summed up in this: that the captains and soldiers , governors and
judges , do not have a greater right to do so that that which the king has given them, and the king
did not give them more than that which he received from the pope, and the pope did not, nor
could he , give him more than what he received from Christ which is the percept and right to be
able to go and send people throughout the whole world to preach the Gospel They just couldn’t
give up or give something they have, the possession. They don’t want someone to be one step
higher than them. But the different is that they don’t have the right form any of the people to
whom they preach what is theirs, and as just as they cannot take form individuals possessions.
The king has not been given nor could he have been given more power that what he has, which
was that he could send preachers to all the lands that were being discovered, send as coadjutors
of the Gospel men of arms who were necessary to assure preaching , to receive and protect. It
does not follow that they can as they have done completely take control of and seize other
peoples’ kingdoms and all government , it does not mean that the Gospel take over its rule rather,
it attempts to protect it and perfect its government . The Indian people have their lands which
neither the King nor the pope can take away from them. But it still posed a doubt that since there
are confessions and truth about seizing or possession of land.
The book translation also mentioned the Encomenda. The term encomienda belongs to
the military orders from which appointments to colonial offices were made. The word probably
corresponds to”commandery", defines the term as "a right conceded by royal bounty to well-
deserving persons in the Indies, to receive and enjoy for themselves the tributes of the Indians
who should be assigned to them, with the charge of- providing for the good of those Indians in
spiritual and temporal matters, and of inhabiting and defending the provinces where these
encomiendas should be granted them.”It is legal system by which the Spanish crown attempted
to define the status of the indigenous population.
Lands discovered did not always prove bountiful as was expected and so, in order to
make the possessions pay and attractive, the system of parcelling out lands to lay conquerors was
instituted. The system attracted many adventures from the Mother Country who undertook
expeditions either for private interest or for some governor who later recompensed the services
with a grant of land. The reward was not infrequently accompanied by offices and other benefits.
Later, grants of encomienda, were made not only to individuals who participated in the conquest
of territory, but also to civilians who would settle in the newly conquered colony.
Theoretically, peace and order was to be established in the colony before it could be
parcelled to the victors, but in the colonization of Spain she peopled her ultra-marine possessions
soon after they were entered. The individual who received an encomienda was called an
encomendero, and being the medium between the King and the native inhabitants living on his
allotment, he was as much responsible for their spiritual and material welfare as raising the beat
crop on his land. The provisions were made to the effect that residence of four years on land and
cultivating it all that time entitled the settler to ownership. It appears, however, that lands were
acquired in some other ways, for in 1578 the audiences were ordered to designate days in which
land titles should be presented for examination. The Spaniards adopted "a method by which the
State enabled an individual who held its lands without legal title thereto to convert his mere
possession into a perfect right of property by virtue of compliance with the requirements of
law.1' This method was designated as "coffipoeicion", a Spanish term which had a technical
meaning as applied to land titles.
Although the original intent of the encomienda was to reduce the abuses of forced labour
(repartimiento) employed shortly after Europeans’ 15th-century discovery of the New World, in
practice it became a form of enslavement. Consisted of a grant by the crown to a conquistador, a
soldier, an official, or others of a specified number of “Indios” (Native Americans and, later,
Filipinos) living in a particular area. The receiver of the grant, the encomendero, could exact
tribute from the “Indios” in gold, in kind, or in labour and was required to protect them and
instruct them in the Christian faith. The encomienda did not include a grant of land, but in
practice the encomenderos gained control of lands inhabited by “Indios” and failed to fulfill their
obligations to the indigenous population.
These violations of the Spanish civil authorities of the rights of the natives as instituted
by the Laws of the Indies, more so of their divinely instituted rights as human persons,
constituted sins which the Spaniards carried in their consciences. Devout Catholics as they were,
they would approach the friar-missionaries to be absolved from these sins. However, the friar-
missionaries would demand restitution before they would give the absolution. De Rada, for
example, had put in place rules of penances that had to be fulfilled for an encomendero to be
absolved. The oppressive conduct of many conquistadors and encomenderos injured deeply the
Christian sensibilities of the early missionaries. They were priests, moralists, administrators of
God’s absolution in the confession, and in front of the injustices and of ill-gotten money from
tributes; they could not but demand restitution before absolution.
It is in the middle of this uncomfortable state that the first bishop of Manila, the first
Dominican in the Islands, would find the friar-missionaries and the civil authorities, a problem
that he and his fellow Dominican Domingo de Salazar dealt with at the initial stage of
evangelization and conquest of the islands.
The Dominicans continued the struggle for the cause of the natives. Though they found
themselves alone in putting forward the rights of the natives, as the Augustinians, Franciscans and
Jesuits had already given up the struggle, they remained to be the stout defenders of the natives
against the continuing injustices inflicted against the latter. Among these abuses was the continued
excessive collection of tributes without the benefit of religious instructions that ought to have been
provided by the encomenderos.
The conclusion of the Synod and the Manual it had produced are fruits of the bittersweet
experiences the Spaniards at the beginning of the colonization of the islands, presided over by
Salazar. However, it is evident that the results of discussions were very much influenced by what had
transpired in the American experience of the Spaniards and by the theology that sprung from these
older disputes-- theology that influenced the members of the Synod, especially Salazar.
According to Notes form the Choir, as the Synod commenced, Salazar received a threat from
no less from the then Governor General Gonzalo Ronquillo de Penalosa, telling Salazar that he, the
Governor-General, was a descendant of Spanish cavaliers who had no scruples to send Bishops to the
gibbet. Another Spanish conquistador told the good bishop to slow down, reminding him that he
could hit his miter with his arquebus from a distance of fifty meters.
Despite with all the threats, pure courage always coexisted with the holiness in the man of
cloth. The First Bishop of Manila dauntlessly fought for the downtrodden, for that sector that
were ignored, dismissed of the society, and espoused the cause of the Filipinos with valor. He
exerted his ecclesiastical authority, his sense of justice, and his paternal charity to protect the
autochthonous people against the authoritarian rule of the Spanish conquerors.
Rachelle Z. Soliman
BSGE-2
RPH-O1
