The election of corporate members is carried on under the presidency of the provincial chief by twelve of the most prominent men in the town—­half of them drawn by lots cast by those who were gobernadorcillos and cabezas de barangay, and the other six from the cabezas in actual office; while he who is gobernadorcillo at the time of election votes also.  The individual who obtains most votes is proposed to the general government as being first on the list; he who follows him in the number of votes, in the second; and the actual pedaneo [i.e. a subordinate officer, here the gobernadorcillo], in the third.  From that list of three [terna], the governor-general appoints one, after seeing the report of the president of the election.

The cabezas de barangay are chiefs of fifty families, those from whom are collected the contributions that form part of the revenues of the treasury and government.  This institution, antedating the conquest, is most useful, the more, for the same reasons, since the gobernadorcillos come to be to their members of barangays or those they rule, the same that those pedaneos [i.e.], the cabezas] are to the generality of the inhabitants.  The actual cabezas or the ex-cabezas, with the gobernadorcillo and the ex-captains (as those who have exercised that office are designated), form the principalia [i.e., chieftain class, or nobility].

Their usual dress is a black jacket, European trousers, mushroom hat, and colored slippers; many even wear varnished [i.e., patent leather] shoes.  The shirt is short, and worn outside the trousers.  The gobernadorcillo carries a tasseled cane [baston], the lieutenants wands [varas].  On occasions of great ceremony, they dress formally in frock coat, high-crowned hat—­objects of value that are inherited from father to son.

On the day on which the gobernadorcillo takes his office, his town has a great festival [fiestajan].  All eat, drink, smoke, and amuse themselves at the expense of the municipe [i.e., the citizen who is elected gobernadorcillo], and the rejoicing is universal.  In the tribunal (city hall) he occupies a large lofty seat, which is adorned with the arms of Espana and with fanciful designs, if his social footing shows a respectable antiquity.

On holy days the officials go to the church in a body.  The principalia and the cuadrilleros form in two lines in front of the gobernadorcillo and the music precedes them.  In the church the latter occupies a seat in precedence of those of the chiefs, who have benches of honor.  After the mass, they usually go to the convent to pay their respects to the parish priest; and they return to the tribunal in the same order, the musicians playing a loud double quick march. [104] There they hold a meeting, at which the gobernadorcillo presides, in which he, in concert with the cabezas, determines the public services for the week.

The tributarios of many towns go, after mass, to hear orally the orders that the cabezas communicate to them.  In order to summon any of them when necessity requires, they have adopted certain taps of the drum; and on hearing it they go to the tribunal.