The title tells us that the book was "corrected" by the priests of
more than one order, and since it was printed by the Dominicans,
we can assume that the ultimate responsibility for the preparation
of the text in consultation with friars of other orders also lay
in their hands. Our problem then is to discover what texts were
available to them in 1593 and who were the priests who formed the
editorial board. We have included in this study also the origins of
the Chinese text, for the two Doctrinas appeared at the same time,
and as we shall see the same Dominicans were probably responsible for
the production and preparation of both the Tagalog and the Chinese
texts. During the period under discussion there were priests of four
orders active in the islands, and so we shall speak in turn of the
Augustinian, Franciscan, Jesuit and Dominican fathers who might have
written or worked on the Doctrinas printed in 1593.



THE AUGUSTINIANS


The first priests to come to the Philippines were six Augustinians
who accompanied Legazpi on the expedition which in 1565 established
the first permanent European settlement in the islands. Among them
was Martin de Rada, who was one of the most important and influential
priests during the early days of the Spanish colony, and who was the
first linguist of note to work in the Philippines. The first language
he learned was Visayan, [59] native to the island of Cebú where the
Spaniards first landed, but he also learned Chinese. In May 1572 he
was elected provincial of his order, and in June 1575 he went with
Jerónimo Marín, as ambassador to China, being "the first Spaniard