This system of indirect rule helps create in rural areas a Filipino upper class, referred to as the principalia or the principals (principal ones).

This group has local wealth; high status and prestige; and certain privileges, such as exemption from taxes, lesser roles in the parish church, and appointment to local offices.

The principalia is larger and more influential than the preconquest nobility, and it creates and perpetuates an oligarchic system of local control.

Among the most significant and enduring changes that occurs under Spanish rule is that the Filipino idea of communal use and ownership of land is replaced with the concept of private, individual ownership and the conferring of titles on members of the principalia.