From Four Nodes of History: The Human Rights Challenge in the Philippine Security Sector All household heads were also required the annual cedula (residence tax) which was based on a fixed rate. Spanish friars became the main hacienderos in many agricultural lands. In Southern Tagalog areas, for example, the friars owned as much as 45 percent of the best agricultural lands. They were known to grab lands of dying Filipinos who were administered the last sacraments, claiming that they had donated their land holdings to the church as their last will and testament. They also usurped the lands owned by the Spanish Crown and resisted audits. In these friar lands even the fish from rivers and products of forests were claimed as part of Church property; friars banned farmers from getting food or demanded a share from those who fished, hunted or took wood products. 5. What was the role of the Philippine military during the Spanish era? The Spanish conquistadores recruited islanders to comprise the majority of soldiers in the Spanish Army, the Guardia Civil and the village police/militia (Bantayanes). The soldiers were used to act as a coercive force to implement the slave encomienda system, forced labor (Polo y Servicio), and the Bandala system, and to act as escorts for 8 tribute and tax collection, besides maintaining the Spanish brand of peace and order. They were also used as expeditionary forces to invade the peoples of the region, as in the case of Formosa, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei and Borneo, or to fight Spanish defensive wars against the Netherlands and Britain. As such, for more than 300 years, the Philippine military under the Spanish regime committed systemic human rights violations. Instead of protecting the Filipino people, they were the protectors of the Spanish authorities and friars. 6. What does the Spanish legacy teach us about human rights and human rights violations? Human rights violations are crimes committed by the State or its instrumentalities that are either systemic or non-systemic in nature. Human rights violations are deemed systemic if such violations emanate from a state (a) that was installed without the consent of the people through a social contract called the constitution and the laws that emanate from it,   (b) whose highest officials and offices are not elected or approved re-