h maintain religious instruction
(although none, or very few, have enough of it), there are some whose
inhabitants, although including some Christians, are for the most part
infidels, and so ill-disposed and so unfavorably situated that it is
impossible for them to receive the instruction, since there are not
enough ministers in the said encomiendas. Even though instruction
exists therein, no tribute, or at least very little, ought to be
exacted of the infidels until they have ministers to teach them,
and the encomendero influences them to give consent, so that they can
be taught. In this class of encomiendas are included the tingues of
Silanga, Pasi, Tabuco, and Maragondon; those of Pangasinan, and others
in Ylocos; and the rest in the island of Panay. These encomiendas
are among those which have religious instruction: the others have
already been enumerated.

The encomenderos of these islands have fallen into an error, based upon
a misunderstanding of a decree of the king, in which he commands that
a fourth part of the tributes from the encomiendas shall be set aside
in order to construct churches and to provide for divine worship. They
imagine that by virtue of this decree those encomiendas which have
never had religious teaching may collect the entire tribute, after
setting aside a fourth part of it. Moreover, but a small number have
set aside this fourth part, and they have done it very seldom. It
is an unbearable deception for the encomenderos to hold this view,
for this decree does not refer to the encomiendas which, as we have
said, are deprived of religious teaching. As for the latter, not only
can the king not give them license to collect their tributes, but,
even were he here, he himself could not collect them. The aforesaid
decree, moreover, treats not of these, but of the encomiendas whose
inhabitants are already Christian. It is with regard to these that the
king commands that a fourth part of the tributes be appropriated for
the construction of churches; and that in place of the tithes which
they, as Christians, owe to the ministers for their maintenance, a
certain part of the tributes be appropriated in such wise as may be
here decided. Afterward, I shall satisfactorily prove that it never
entered the king's mind that the encomenderos would, by renouncing
the fourth part of the tributes, fulfil their obligations toward
their encomiendas.

The above is a summary of the contents of the opinion which I am