Thank you for your reply.

Citizenship wasn't developed anywhere in the world until the French revolution. I said "citizens" to use the modern term; before that, people were subjects (to a crown).

On this, the Leyes de Burgos (1512) clearly state: "los nativos son seres humanos libres y vasallos de la Corona Castellana" (natives are free human beings and subjects of the Castillian Crown), and as such had the same rights as Spanish-born Spaniards: to own property, free movement, right to a proper lodging, paid and dignified work, good health, to marry and to create a family, to nourish themselves, and even to keep their traditional indigenous customs, culture and languages.

I know rights and duties, taxes etc. changed even if you moved to the next town over (still does!), but your "fundamental" rights were the same for all Spaniards (indians and Spanish-born) in the whole realm of the Spanish (in 1512, Castillian) Crown. 300 years later, the first Spanish Constitution (1812) recognized citizenship for the first time in Spanish history, and granted Spanish citizenship to all "Spaniards in both hemispheres".

The Philippines were never a colony of the Spanish Empire, nor was the Spanish a empire. All territories and citizens under the Spanish Catholic Monarchy were provinces of the same country ("españoles de ambos hemisferios"), with the same rights and duties, liberties and freedoms of Spanish-born Spaniards. The Philippines had the same status and was as much a colony as Granada, Castille, or Andalucia. Of all that direct extraction of resources (to put things into perspective, Peru extracted as much silver last year as the Spanish in 400 years), only 1/5 (the quinto real) would go to the Spanish Crown back in Spain (minus whatever sunk in the way), while 80% of anything stayed in the overseas provinces.

If you want to talk about trade, at the end of the 18th century, the UK sold their textiles in Mexico at 20x the price in England, and it was this cash that bank-rolled the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution would have never happened without the British trade with the Spanish provinces of the New World. Contraband (undeclared goods) made up to 90% of the trade.