"Very many of them also never go to mass in any village where the cura is not especially zealous. In the city of Vigan, where there are about 30,000 persons, not more than 500 or 800 went to church during my stay there on any feast-day, except one of especial devotion to celebrate a virgin patroness of the city. There has been and is much talk of the influence of the curas in the villages. No doubt there is something in it, but their respect and deference toward the parish priest is influenced not a little, in my opinion by their idea (and one not ill founded) of the power of the priest, of the employment that he can give; and of their hope that he will protect them in any oppression that they receive from the civil government or from the soldiers. In reality, the friar usually addresses his parishioners in the language of peace, which is the method which fits well into the phlegmatic Filipino. He constitutes himself their defender, even without their having any regard for him--now from the injuries that the avarice of their governors causes them, now from the tendency of these to acquire preponderance and to command, which is the first instinct of man. Consequently, the friars, by resisting and restraining in all parts, and at so great a distance from Madrid, the tyranny or greed of the Spaniards, have been very useful to the villages, and have been acquiring their love. And since the islands are not kept subject by force, but by the will of the mass of the inhabitants, and the means of persuasion are principally in the hands of the religious, the government is necessarily obliged to show the latter considerable deference. From this fact originates their influence in temporal affairs, and the fear mixed with the respect with which they inspire the people. Three facts naturally result from all this. The cura, speaking in general, is the one who governs the village. Consequently, when a new village is formed its inhabitants do not care to be annexed or dependent on another village in regard to spiritual things; but desire and petition for a parish priest of their own, in order that they might have in him a powerful defender in their differences and suits with other settlements, or with the alcalde of the province. Lastly, the ascendency that the minister is seen to enjoy is perhaps as much civil as religious, if it is not more so. And in fact ... although they have often succeeded in pacifying seditions by their mere presence alone, and the insurgents, for instance, in Ilocos in the year 1807, surrendered to the friar the cannon that they had captured from a band of 36 soldiers and two patrols of the guard, who were routed, yet at other times not only have individuals but whole masses refused to listen to the admonitions of the religious, have completely lost respect for them, have insulted them, threatened them, wounded them, and even assassinated them, and have not lacked the complement of all this, profaning the churches.