On four occasions the Supreme State authority in the Colony has been vested in the prelates. Archbishop Manuel Rojo, acting-Governor at the time of the British occupation of Manila in 1763, is said to have died of grief and shame in prison (1764) through the intrigues of the violent Simon de Anda y Salazar (q.v.).
José Raon was Gov.-General in 1768, when the expulsion of the Jesuits was decreed. After the secret determination was made known to him, he was accused of having divulged it, and of having concealed his instructions. He was thereupon placed under guard in his own residence, where he expired (_vide_ Simon de Anda y Salazár).
Domingo Moriones y Murillo (1877-80), it is alleged, had grave altercations with the friars, and found it necessary to remind the Archbishop Payo that the supreme power in the Philippines belonged to the State--not to the Church representative.
From the earliest times of Spanish dominion, it had been the practice of the natives to expose to view the corpses of their relations and friends in the public highways and villages whilst conveying them to the parish churches, where they were again exhibited to the common gaze, pending the pleasure of the parish priest to perform the last obsequies. This outrage on public decorum was proscribed by the Director-General of Civil Administration in a circular dated October, 18, 1887, addressed to the Provincial Governors, enjoining them to prohibit such indecent scenes in future. Thereupon the parish priests simply showed their contempt for the civil authorities by simulating their inability to elucidate to the native petty governors the true intent and meaning of the order. At the same time, the Archbishop of Manila issued instructions on the subject to his subordinates in very equivocal language. The native local authorities then petitioned the Civil Governor of Manila to make the matter clear to them. The Civil Governor forthwith referred the matter back to the Director-General of Civil Administration. This functionary, in a new circular dated November 4, confirmed his previous mandate of October 18, and censured the action of the parish priests, who "in improper language and from the pulpit," had incited the native headmen to set aside his authority. The author of the circular sarcastically added the pregnant remark, that he was penetrated with the conviction that the Archbishop's sense of patriotism and rectitude _would deter him from subverting the law_. This incident seriously aroused the jealousy of the friars holding vicarages, and did not improve the relations between Church and State.