PAGES STILL FOLDED, AND NEVER OPEN.
TAINTED COVER, NEEDS BINDING

ABOUT THE WORK

Patricio de la Escosura was a romantic Spanish writer and politician who lived in the Philippines between 1862 and 1865. He was sent as the government’s royal commissioner, a text in which he lists the problems he tried to deal with during his stay. He wrote a long and juicy foreword to Francisco Cañamaque’s Recuerdos de Filipinas [Remembrances from the Philippines] (1877) in which he announces some of the ideas he develops in this Report. The author died in January 1878, so it is a posthumous work that had remained unpublished for eighteen years. Retana states, “It contains data and observations worthy of being consulted, and, of all that has been written officially, it is the work that contains the greatest teachings.” The first edition of this Report saw the light of day the same year. It contains a 40-page prologue by Cañamaque in which he broadly outlines the human and geographical reality of the Philippine archipelago. Escosura’s analytical work on the Philippines is divided into nine reports and twenty-two documents in the appendix section, where he deals with topics of interest and current affairs. In “Memoria sobre la enseñanza de la lengua castellana” [Report about teaching of Castilian language], he denounces that there are hardly any people who speak Spanish outside Manila and no place where it is taught. He designs a plan for its implementation throughout the archipelago. Sets up the plan of a new, more efficient, and effective organization for the administration of the Philippines. Proposes the creation of a school for physicians and surgeons. In the long “Memoir on Jolo and Borneo,” he advocates an effectual conquest of Sulu to end piracy and the incorporation of Borneo as an integral part of the Philippines, as a tributary territory of the Sultan of Jolo. The whole book is full of exciting observations.