It is not so in these Filipinas, where, as I have said, there are so few religious. Supposing that the plan of Don Juan de Palafox were to be inaugurated, and that all the religious submitted to receive the canonical collation of the curacies in proprietary appointment, the conservation and continued supply of religious would cease. The chapters would cease, for they could not remove the religious from the villages where they were acting as proprietary curas; and it would be necessary to keep them where they had their parishes. Very great difficulties would ensue from that. The province would cease to send procurators to España to bring back religious; and if the generous motive of coming as apostolic missionaries ceased, they would leave their provinces and fatherland--all the more because of being subject to the bishops, a burden so far from the exemption of the regulars that we watch so carefully. That subjection would have to be not only to the bishop but also to the ecclesiastical governors of a vacant see. There have been so many of the latter in these islands, that in Manila they had them for fourteen years; and in Cebú, Cagayán, and Camarines, for twenty years. The provincials would have nothing left but that name, and would not have entire control over their subordinates. The above and many other representations were made to Archbishop Don Millán de Poblete, and they availed so well with him that he suspended his resolve. The same things were represented to Don Diego Camacho, and these same reasons moved the gentlemen of the royal Council of the Indias to moderate that subjection--leaving it only in the visitation, with the limitations already mentioned, thus enjoining perpetual silence, in regard to erecting the missions into curacies, and to allowing the orders to abandon the ministries of those missions.
The archbishop having put aside his doubt in regard to undertaking the visitation of the regulars, dedicated himself, as a true prelate, to his other obligations. The first one was the building of the cathedral, because of the ruin that occurred in it on the fatal night of St. Andrew in the year 1645; the church of the girls' school of Santa Isabel was being used as a cathedral. He placed his shoulders very earnestly to that so chief obligation, although the poverty of the times made it difficult for him. He set about collecting materials, and the order of our father St. Augustine lent him the lime-kilns of Birabira, where the best and strongest lime of all the islands is made. The pious and Catholic governor, Don Sabiniano Manrique de Lara, was the one who conquered the greatest difficulties by collecting a generous alms from the citizens of Manila, and by giving his aid to the archbishop. The building was commenced, and, after the trenches for the foundations had been made, the archbishop clad himself in his pontifical garments and on the twentieth of April, 1654, blessed the first stone, which was carried by General Don Pedro de Mendiola. The master-of-camp, Don Pedro de Almonte, carried on a rich tray a bronze plate with the inscription of the erection of the church. Captain Don Nicolás Sarmiento carried on another tray five silver coins, and Captain Diego Castellanos a box of lead. All went in procession to the place where the stone was to be placed, and the governor and archbishop set it in position, while the litanies were being chanted. In a hollow already made in the stone were placed the plate and coins. The inscription on the plate is as follows:
