with movable type his conclusions are not too extreme.

In 1896 appeared Jose Toribio Medina's _La Imprenta en Manila_, which
was up to then the best, most complete and most scholarly work on early
Philippine printing, and is today with its subsequent additions and
corrections the standard bibliography of the subject. There Medina
cited most of the authorities we have already quoted, the letter of
Dasmarinas, Fernandez' _Historia eclesiastica_, Aduarte, Adelung,
Beristain and Pardo de Tavera. Then, basing his conclusions strongly
on the Dasmarinas letter and the note of Adelung, he listed [46]
as number one in his bibliography the Doctrina of 1593 in Spanish
and Tagalog, and as number two the Doctrina in Spanish and Chinese
of the same year. This is a verdict which has stood the test of
time, and one that is just now confirmed by the discovery of the
book itself. Two points, however, in his survey should be noted. In
his discussion of the printing and the authorship Medina does not
emphasize the Dominican origin of the book, although he does say that
"it does not appear bold to us to suppose that the imprint of these
Doctrinas ought to be the Hospital of San Gabriel in this village
[Binondo]," [47] and faithfully copies Adelung's imprint notice, "in
the Dominican printing-house," in his listing of the book. The other
point is that he says in his introduction and repeats in his entry
that the Doctrina had a Latin as well as Spanish and Tagalog texts,
an erroneous translation of Adelung's "mit lateinische und tagalische
Schrift." He was hesitant as are all bibliographers, who must perforce
record the probable existence of a book a copy of which they have
never seen, in committing himself as to whether it was printed from
blocks or from type or by a combination of the two methods.

More positive and more succinct than Medina was T.E. Retana whose
earlier researches [48] into the history of the Philippines Medina
acknowledgedly made use of, and who in 1897 published his _La Imprenta
en Filipinas, Adiciones y Observaciones a La Imprenta en Manila_. He
took the material of Medina, added the evidence of Chirino and
Plasencia, and resummarized the problem. The letter of Dasmarinas
showed conclusively that a Doctrina was printed in 1593. Chirino said
that the first two whose works were printed were Juan de Villanueva and
Blancas de San Jose. Fernandez stated positively that the first book
printed in the Philippines was the boo