Reaction: Responding to the challenges of the conquista

COLLECTING our ancestors together and making them submit to the reduccion policy to become part of the pueblos was not only about easier political control. Proposed by a friar, it was started in these islands but was adapted as a policy throughout the Spanish Empire, including Latin America, and became known as the “Leyes de las Indias” (Laws of the Indies) to bring our ancestors back to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church.

Indeed, there were civil authorities ruling the colony from among the Spanish-born peninsulares sent to the Philippines like the governor-general or the alcaldes mayores of the provinces for a term of a few years. But it was the parish priest who was supreme in his influence because he could stay in a town for decades. To be fair, not all of the friars were bad but when things turned bad, they became an easy target as the most hated symbol of the conquista, that later patriots like Marcelo H. del Pilar would write about the “Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines.” That some friars enjoyed absolute power and corrupted it absolutely did not help matters.