Vestiges
By José S. Arcilla, S.J.
By José S. Arcilla, S.J.
AN UNSIGNED letter to the Dominican Prior Provincial in Manila adds some details to the story of the British occupation of Manila in 1762-64, not included in school books. The friar could not have known that the Treaty of Paris had been signed to end the Seven Years’ War in Europe, and return the Philippines to Spanish control.
The
British, he wrote, had fortified themselves in Fort Santiago in
Manila and Fort San Felipe in Cavite. They also set up a third fort
along the Pasig River, and a detachment in the town of Pasig. These
gave them untrammeled access to Laguna, Tayabas (Quezon, today), and
Batangas. But their repeated sorties, surface combats, and looting by
Filipino bandits caused much damage.
The Chinese, to the
Dominican friar, “more hostile to Spain than the British
themselves,” fully cooperated with the British, weighing the odds
and waiting which side would win. “With diabolical fury,” he
added, they, too, committed horrible acts of “inhuman
licentiousness.”
The British met no opposition and, without
shedding a single drop of blood, they became masters of the gold and
the silver in many churches, as well as what the Spaniards had been
earning as their livelihood from selling the products of the
provinces.
The indios in
Pangasinan and nearby provinces hardened their attitude and took up
arms to shake off the Spanish government. Juan de la Cruz Palaris in
Pangasinan and Diego Silang in Ilocos led hordes of rebels, saying
there were no longer any Spaniards in Manila.
Providentially,
Don Simón de Anda, the youngest member of the Manila Audiencia, was
able to sneak out and recruited an army that won the respect of the
enemy and the rebellious groups. He had sequestered the situado,
or the annual subsidy from Mexico that was coming in aboard the
galleon Filipino.
Helped by the Franciscans in Samar and the Bicol region,
loyal indiosshouldered
the fortune across the mountains to Bacolor, the center of resistance
Anda had organized. Not a moment too soon, for the British, too,
wanted to lay their hands on the money.
The Spaniards, hardly
inured to fight, generally tepid Catholics, had distanced themselves
from Anda, on the pretext that they had pledged their word of honor
to support the British. But they had no qualms of conscience reneging
on their promise at the clink of silver pesos, and they rivaled one
another to fight under the resistance leader and be paid for serving
their legitimate sovereign.
Anda’s group harassed the enemy.
Had they been competent and properly trained, they could have
expelled the enemy altogether or confined them at the two posts of
Manila and Cavite. They numbered about 2,500 men against a British
force of 800 or 1,000. Besides, the latter were demoralized by the
bickering and rivalries among their own leaders. For example,
Brigadier William Drake crated all the gold he had confiscated and
marked the boxes as “rice.”
The friars could do nothing.
They received more respect from the enemy than from a colonial
government that, priding itself as Catholic, was imbued with liberal
anti-clerical ideas. The friars’ faults were exaggerated, singled
out. A friar’s personal comment, to ease pent-up emotions, was
aired as treachery and a crime of lèse
majesté.
Attempts to defend themselves were counter-productive. The people
accused them of speaking such as to ruin the Catholic religion in the
Philippines.
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