hands of their author, they have not come down to us." [88] More
important still is Rojo's statement [89] that he found a portion of
Plasencia's Doctrina which had been believed lost, and from which he
quotes the Pater Noster. Since he does not say where the manuscript
was or how it was known to be Plasencia's text, we cannot put too
much reliance on the statement, but the text as there printed, while
similar to that of the present Doctrina, is not identical.



THE JESUITS


Before passing on to the Dominicans we shall mention briefly the
linguists of the Society of Jesus. In the early days there were not
many Jesuits in the Philippines. However, there were some linguists
among them, chiefly of the Visayan tongue, in which they are said to
have printed a Doctrina [90] as early as 1610. Limiting ourselves to
a note of those who knew Chinese and Tagalog, we find that the first
mentioned by Chirino as an outstanding master of one of these was
Francisco Almerique, who arrived with Santiago de Vera in 1583. Shortly
thereafter he "began the study of the Chinese language in his zeal
to aid in the conversion of the many Chinese who came to Manila and
whom we in the Philippines call Sangleys." [91] And Colin says "his
principal occupation was with the Tagalog Indians, being the first of
the Company to learn their language." [92] Nothing further is said of
his accomplishments in these languages, but his knowledge would have
been available in 1593, for he was then still active in the islands.

Chirino himself landed at Manila in 1590 shortly after Dasmariñas,