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The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 47, 1728-1759: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century — John Shaqi

History

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 47, 1728-1759: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources

During this time of the most cruel miseries and disasters this
venerable brotherhood made a rare show of the greatest strength of
its burning charity, for it appears that, through this house of the
Misericordia, God erected a new storehouse, well provided with every
remedy for the consolation of invalids, the relief of prisoners, and
the remedy of the sick. Thus the Misericordia attended promptly to what
it considered most fitting, striving as much as possible to soften
the lamentations and tears of so many poor people who begged relief
in troops for their extreme need, by distributing among them daily,
and when the cords of hunger pressed them more tightly, in the public
places of this city vast alms, which exceeded three hundred pesos
weekly. At the same time it took the most vigorous measures for the
construction of new infirmaries or rooms, which were erected after
the hospital of the Misericordia, in order to attend nearer at hand,
and with greater and prompter assistance, the pains, treatment, and
relief of so many poor women who refused to receive them anywhere
else, as well as to the wretched slaves who were dying of hunger
or sickness in the out-of-the-way places of this city. If this so
Christian provision had been lacking those people could not have
obtained spiritual or temporal consolation.

With so powerful and Christian an example, this holy brotherhood
moved and attracted all the city, not only to the imitation of so
devout exercises but also succeeded in getting the free coöperation
of many alms which were distributed for so pious purposes. All of
the city was divided into three equal parts or wards, so that the
deputies of the board, who were successively occupied in this, might
distribute said alms, and many others which were given into their
own hands in proportion to the necessity and rank of each one of the
families. In this it was quite evident that the liberal hand of God
was working in order to succor with so great piety so innumerable
miseries. It appears that during the hard times of those five years,
this brotherhood distributed more than 80,000 pesos to the benefit
of all this community and its poor.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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