Fray Domingo Perez, evidently a man of courage and conviction, for he
later lost his life in the work of which he wrote, was the Dominican
vicar on the Zambales coast when that Order temporarily took over the
district from the Recollects. In a report written for his superior in
1680 he outlines the method clearly: "In order that those whom we have
assembled in the three villages may persevere in their settlements,
the most efficacious fear and the one most suited to their nature is
that the Spaniards of the fort and presidio of Paynaven[2] of whom they
have a very great fear, may come very often to the said villages and
overrun the land, and penetrate even into their old recesses where they
formerly lived; and if perchance they should find anything planted in
the said recesses that they would destroy it and cut it down without
leaving them anything. And so that they may see the father protects
them, when the said Spaniards come to the village, the father opposes
them and takes the part of the Indians. But it is always necessary
in this matter for the soldiers to conquer, and the father is always
very careful always to inform the Spaniards by whom and where anything
is planted which it may be necessary to destroy, and that the edicts
which his Lordship, the governor, sent them be carried out .... But
at all events said Spaniards are to make no trouble for the Indians
whom they find in the villages, but rather must treat them well." [3]

This in 1680: the Dominican transcriber of the record in 1906 has
added a very illuminating note, revealing the immutability of the
system and showing that the rulers possessed in a superlative degree
the Bourbonesque trait of learning nothing and forgetting nothing:
"Even when I was a missionary to the heathens from 1882 to 1892,
I had occasion to observe the said policy, to inform the chief of
the fortress of the measures that he ought to take, and to make a