The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 24]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 24

being adito.23 All the above in assembly made excellent regulations, and established for that time very
good acts and laws; and they charged our father
provincial with the execution of them, since on that
depended the universal good of all the province.
It was proposed in this chapter, and, in fact, it
was so ordered, for reasons that were very apparent
there, that the chapters in the future should be held
every four years, and the intermediary chapters
every two years. The main consideration that
influenced them was the great deficiency that the
fathers create in their convents during the time when
they come to the election, and they deemed it advisable to obviate this injury as much as possible,
since it could not be entirely remedied - concluding
that the expenses, if they could not be avoided, at
least would be delayed as late as possible. This was
agreed upon at that time, but later it was considered
unadvisable, and consequently the enactment in this
matter was repealed.
After the election, and the departure of the vessels
to Castilla, our father visitor undertook to go to visit
the province of Bisayas, which he did very slowly.
He took as his associate our father Fray Hernando
Becerra,24 then a recent arrival. He visited the
went to Bisayas instead of Japan which was his chosen field,
working there from 600o to 1639 (the year of his death). He
held several important ecclesiastical offices in the Bisayas.
See Perez's Catalogo.
23 Definitors are the fathers who compose the council of the
provincial. Aditos are those who are to be substituted for any
definitor because of his death. - Coco.
24 Fray Fernando Becerra was born in Valladolid and took his
vows in the convent of Salamanca, where he read sacred theology.
On going to the Philippines he was missionary in Bantay in 6I I,
preacher and reader in 1613, provincial secretary in I614, mis