This chapter examines two periods (1641–45 and 1645–53) briefly interrupted by the eight-day government of Archbishop Montero de Espinosa (1645). It takes a micro-political approach to the analysis of personal ties of friendship, patronage networks, and close pre-existing kinship in the constitution of political “families,” paying close attention to the rivalries and conflicts of the secular clergy and its web of connections with the local world. The chapter emphasizes the importance of these collegial bodies in articulating local power networks during these periods of “interregnum,” especially during a prolonged period of political and economic crisis in the Spanish Empire in the Philippines.