Luna's palette has revived the recollection of the "Blood Compact" between Legaspi and Sikatuna, and the Filipino cannot view without regret the powerful intervention of the friar interests which, blocking every tendency toward fraternity between Spain and the Philippines, are creating a difficult situation by increasing the former's unfriendliness and the latter's burdens. For this they rely on the difference of language between the governing and the governed classes; and to maintain that difference, to impede popular instruction and to prevent at all cost that the people and their government shall come to understand each other is the best way to maintain them in perpetual antagonism. How far this plan has already gone can be estimated by analyzing the relations of the friarocracy with the official institution which makes up the organization of the towns of the Philippines. As everywhere else, in the Philippines the relation of residents to the municipal officers is of the utmost importance. The petty governor, or chief of the village, in each locality constitutes the channel of communication and the agency for carrying out the ideas of the government, and according to the activity or inertness of this element the plan of the higher authorities works out effectively or suffers sad shipwreck. The parish priest has no vote in these elections, but controls them because in his hands is the veto power. In forwarding the returns for the ratification of the election result, the parish priest makes two reports: one is public in character and is limited to setting forth the grade of instruction of the candidate in the official language; the other is confidential and under no restrictions whatever. The candidate who has no legal impediment, unless he is of the priest's following, will turn out disqualified in some other way, thanks to the confidential report. He will be anti-Spanish, an agitator (filibustero), separatist, and if this report cannot be controverted the candidate of the town meeting will be thrown out. The parish priest, in the final result, is master of the situation. In carrying on their municipal duties, the local authorities are dependent upon the parish priest. For a report on the conduct of a resident, a hundred of the principal men are not enough; the vital point is having the "O. K." of the parish priest. In turning in the tax rolls of the neighborhood, his signature is necessary. For the calling to the colors of the young men to whom the lot has fallen to serve as soldiers, the parish priest's "approved;" to validate accounts and other official documents, the parish priest's "approved;" in everything and for everything there is demanded as the essential requisite the approval of the parish priest.