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. 44]

1700-1736] CONDITION OF ISLANDS

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mayor who makes the apportionment of men adds to
it a greater number than is necessary, and those
who are thus added redeem themselves from this
oppression by money; and then the [list of the]
repartimiento goes to the gobernadorcillo, in order
that the heads [of barangay] may summon for the
woodcutting six or eight men, even though only
four may be necessary. The gobernadorcillo collects in money that amount in excess, as a redemption from an imaginary woodcutting, a proceeding
which does not impair the number of those assigned.
Still more, after all the men go to the woodcutting, if any are lacking the [native] overseer
pays the superintendent of the work at the rate
of two reals a day for the failure of each man. To
this is added that the superintendent himself is wont
to grant exemptions of his own accord, with unjust
benefit to some, to the great injury of the main work,
[the burden of] which falls on those who remain;
moreover, he usually establishes shops, and thus the
fund which his Majesty provides to aid these poor
people by the purchase of some of their commodities
remains therein. His Majesty orders that the men be
called out and paid for one month; but many poor
creatures do not get away from the woodcutting in
a month and a half, during which time they are so
overtaxed and harassed that they hardly have time
to eat, and of sleep they will have some three hours,
as a result of their labors on the account of his
Majesty and outside his account. Such is the sorrowful course of the experiences and the unjust acts
which they encounter in the woodcutting, [a labor]
so carefully guarded from these by his Majestywhose royal and innate piety adorns his crown with