By the unanimous vote of all the Spanish officials, civil and religious, of the merchants and other leading citizens, Sánchez was chosen to go to Madrid as representative of the colony in 1586.
Sánchez's mission to Philip II of Spain was very successful, his arguments moving the king to retain the islands, which many of his advisors had been urging him to abandon.
In a brief of 28 June 1591, Pope Gregory XIV praises the apostolic labours and writings of Sánchez, calling him a true defender of the authority and rights of the Holy See.
Sánchez now asked to be allowed to return to the Philippines, but was sent instead as visitor to some of the Spanish provinces of the Society of Jesus, where there were serious domestic and external troubles.
Sánchez was elected one of the representatives of the Province of Toledo to the Fifth General Congregation of the Society, but he remarked that he had a more important journey to make than the one to Rome.