thou have prudence,
I declare that thou wilt ever be a base beast."

Of the native priests of the Philippines, Delgado says (pp. 293-296):
"I know some seculars in the islands, who although Indians, can
serve as an example and confusion to the European priests. I shall
only bring forward two examples: one, the bachelor Don Eugenio de
Santa Cruz, judge-provisor of this bishopric of Santisimo Nombre
de Jesus, and calificador of the Holy Office, a full blooded Indian
and a native of Pampanga. And inasmuch as the author of this letter
confesses that the Pampangos are a different people, I shall name
another, namely, the bachelor Don Bartolome Saguinsin, a Tagalog,
a cura of the district of Quiape (outside the walls of Manila), an
Indian, and a native of the village of Antipolo. I knew his parents,
and had friendly relations with them while I was minister in that
village. Both men were esteemed for their abilities and venerated for
their virtues, in Tagalos and Visayas." In addition, "those reared
in any of the four colleges in Manila, for the clerical estate are
all the sons of chiefs, people of distinction among the Indians
themselves, and not of the timaua, or of the class of olipon, as the
Visayan says, or maharlica or alipin, as the Tagalog calls the slaves
and freedmen. The reverend fathers of St. Dominic or of the Society
rear these boys and instruct them in virtue and learning; and if they
have any of the vices of Indians, these are corrected and suppressed
by the teaching and conversation of the fathers. Furthermore,
when the most illustrious bishops promote any of these men to holy
orders, they do not proceed blindly, ordering any one whomever to be
advanced--but only with great consideration and prudence, and after
informing themselves of his birth and his morals, and examining and
testing him first before the ministry of souls is entrusted to him;
and to say the contrary is to censure the most illustrious prelates,
to whom we owe so much veneration and reverence. Furthermore, there
are among these Indians, many (and perhaps most of them) who are
as noble, in their line of descent as Indians, as is any Spaniard;
and some of them much more than many Spaniards who esteem themselves
as nobles in this land. For, although their fate keeps them, in the
present order of things, in an almost abject condition, many of them
are seigniors of vassals. Their seigniory has not been suppressed by
the king, nor can it be s