lack of reference to such a printed work by any 17th or 18th century
writer, and the tenuous notices of Bello and Beristain; yet to say
categorically that no such work was printed would be foolhardy in the
face of the scanty early records and the appearance of this Doctrina,
a single copy of which has just been discovered.

The first important work devoted solely to the early history of the
Philippine press was by T.H. Pardo de Tavera, who in 1893 published
his study of printing and engraving in the Philippines. He there
recorded a 1593 Doctrina, but adamantly refused to accept it on the
hearsay evidence of others. His account is valuable because it shows
that there may have been a copy of the Doctrina in Java in 1885,
and so we quote from it at some length:


"A learned Dutch orientalist, Dr. J. Brandes, wrote me in 1885
from Bali-Boeleleng (Java) telling me that in 1593 at Manila
there was printed a Doctrina Christiana in Spanish-Tagalog,
with the proper characters for the latter language. Other
orientalists, at the last Congress in London in 1891, gave
me the same information. Nonetheless, no one told me where
he had read such a thing, nor much less that he had managed
to see such a book, although inspecting a rare book which
I acquired in Paris (Alter, _Ueber die tagalische sprache_,
Vienna, 1803), I saw that the author cited such a Doctrina
Christiana and said that he knew of its existence through Abbé
Hervas. This is an error, and without doubt such a Doctrina was
in manuscript, because in 1591 [he should have said 1593] there
was no press in Manila nor in any part of the archipelago,
and today we know for certain and positively that the first