The economic position of the orders is secured by their extensive landholdings, which generally have been donated to them for the support of their churches, schools, and other establishments.

Given the general lack of interest on the part of Spanish colonials—clustered in Manila and dependent on the galleon trade—in developing agriculture, the religious orders had become by the eighteenth century the largest landholders in the islands, with their estates concentrated in the Central Luzon region.

Land rents—paid often by Chinese mestizo inquilinos, who plant cash crops for export—provide them with the sort of income that enables many friars to live like princes in palatial establishments.