Spanish colonial period just outside
Fort San Pedro,
Cebu City Spanish was the language of government, education and trade throughout the three centuries (333 years) of the Philippines being part of the
Spanish Empire and continued to serve as a
lingua franca until the first half of the 20th century. It was first introduced to the Philippines in 1565, when the conquistador
Miguel López de Legazpi founded the first Spanish settlement on the island of
Cebú. The Philippines, ruled first from
Mexico City and later from
Madrid, was a
Spanish territory for 333 years (1565–1898). Schooling was a priority, however. The
Augustinians opened a school immediately upon arriving in Cebú in 1565. The
Franciscans followed suit when they arrived in 1577, as did the
Dominicans when they arrived in 1587. Besides religious instruction, these schools taught how to read and write and imparted industrial and agricultural techniques. Initially, the stance of the Roman Catholic Church and its
missionaries was to preach to the natives in local languages, not in Spanish. The priests learned the native languages and sometimes employed indigenous peoples as
translators, creating a bilingual class known as Ladinos. Before the 19th century, few natives were taught Spanish. However, there were notable bilingual individuals such as poet-translator
Gaspar Aquino de Belén. Gaspar produced Christian devotional poetry written in the Roman script in
Tagalog.
Pasyon is a narrative of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ begun by Gaspar Aquino de Belén, which has circulated in many versions. Later, the Spanish-Mexican ballads of chivalry, the
corrido, provided a model for secular literature. Verse narratives, or komedya, were performed in the
regional languages for the illiterate majority. In the early 17th century, a Tagalog printer, Tomás Pinpin, set out to write a book in romanized phonetic script to teach the Tagalogs how to learn
Castilian. His book, published by the
Dominican press in which he worked, appeared in 1610, the same year as Blancas's
Arte. Unlike the missionary's grammar, which Pinpin had set in type, the Tagalog native's book dealt with the language of the dominant, rather than the subordinate, other. Pinpin's book was the first such work ever written and published by a Philippine native. As such, it is richly instructive for what it tells us about the interests that animated Tagalog translation and, by implication, conversion during the early colonial period. featured on the cover of a Philippine periodical in Spanish By law, each town had to build two schools, one for boys and the other for girls, to teach the Spanish language and the
Christian catechism. There were never enough trained teachers, however, and several provincial schools were mere sheds open to the rain. That discouraged the attendance at school, and illiteracy was high in the provinces until the 19th century, when public education was introduced. The conditions were better in larger towns. To qualify as an independent civil town, a
barrio or group of barrios had to have a priest's residence, a town hall, boys' and girls' schools; streets had to be straight and at right angles to one another so that the town could grow in size; and the town had to be near a good water source and land for farming and grazing. Better school conditions in towns and cities led to more effective instruction in the Spanish language and in other subjects. Between 1600 and 1865, a number of colleges and universities were established, which graduated many important colonial officials and church prelates, bishops, and archbishops, several of whom served the churches in
Hispanic America. The increased level of education eventually led to the rise of the
Ilustrados. In 1846, French traveler
Jean Baptiste Mallat was surprised at how advanced Philippine schools were.
El Boletín de Cebú, the first Spanish newspaper in
Cebu City, was published in 1886. In Manila, the Spanish language had been more or less widespread to the point that it has been estimated at 50% of the population knew Spanish in the late 19th century. In his 1898 book "Yesterdays in the Philippines", covering a period beginning in 1893, the American
Joseph Earle Stevens, an American who resided in Manila from 1893 to 1894, wrote: Long contact between Spanish and the local languages, Chinese dialects, and later Japanese produced a series of pidgins, known as
Bamboo Spanish, and the Spanish-based creole
Chavacano. At one point, they were the language of a substantial proportion of the Philippine population. Unsurprisingly, since the Philippines was administrated for centuries from
New Spain in present-day
Mexico, Philippine Spanish is broadly similar to
Latin American Spanish not only in vocabulary but also in pronunciation and grammar. The Spanish language was the official language used by the civil and judicial administration, and it was spoken by the majority of the population in the main cities and understood by many, especially after the passing of the Education Decree of 1863. By the end of the 19th century, Spanish was either a mother tongue or a strong second language among the educated elite of the Philippine society, having been learned in childhood either directly from parents and grandparents or in school, or through tutoring.
Schools In the 16th and the 17th centuries, the oldest educational institutions in the country were set up by Spanish religious orders. The schools and universities played a crucial role in the development of the Spanish language in the islands. Colegio de Manila in
Intramuros was founded in 1590. The Colegio formally opened in 1595, and was one of the first schools in the Philippines. In the same year, the
University of San Carlos in Cebú, was established as the Colegio de San Ildefonso by the Jesuits. In 1611, the
University of Santo Tomás, considered as the oldest existing university in Asia, was inaugurated in Manila by the
Dominicans. In the 18th century, fluent male Spanish-speakers in the Philippines were generally the graduates of those schools or of the
Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, established in 1620. In 1706, a convent school for Philippine women, Beaterios, was established. It admitted both Spanish and native girls, and taught religion, reading, writing and arithmetic with music and embroidery. Female graduates from Beaterios were fluent in Spanish as well. In 1859,
Ateneo de Manila University was established by the
Jesuits as the Escuela Municipal. In 1866, the total population of the Philippines was only 4,411,261. The total public schools was 841 for boys and 833 for girls and the total number of children attending the schools was 135,098 boys and 95,260 girls. In 1892, the number of schools had increased to 2,137, 1,087 of which were for boys and 1,050 for girls. The measure was at the vanguard of contemporary Asian countries and led to an important class of educated natives that sometimes continued their studies abroad, like the national hero
José Rizal, who studied in Europe. That class of writers, poets and intellectuals is often referred to as
Ilustrados. Ironically, it was during the initial years of American occupation in the early 20th century that Spanish literature and press flourished, partially due to the freedom of the press allowed following the transition to American rule.
Filipino nationalism and 19th-century revolutionary governments in Spanish ("Long live the Philippine Republic!"). The first two constitutions were written in Spanish. Before the 19th century,
Philippine revolts were small-scale. Since they did not extend beyond linguistic boundaries, they were easily neutralized by Spanish forces. With the small period of the spread of Spanish through a free public school system (1863) and the rise of an educated class, nationalists from different parts of the archipelago were able to communicate in a
common language. José Rizal's novels,
Graciano López Jaena's satirical articles,
Marcelo H. del Pilar's anti-clerical manifestos, the bi-weekly
La Solidaridad, which was published in Spain, and other materials in awakening nationalism were written in Spanish. The
Philippine Revolution fought for reforms and later for independence from Spain. However, it opposed neither Spain's
cultural legacy in the islands nor the Spanish language. Even Graciano López Jaena's
La Solidaridad, an 1889 article that praised the young women of
Malolos who petitioned to
Governor-General Valeriano Weyler to open a night school to teach the Spanish language. In fact, the
Malolos Congress of 1899 chose Spanish as the official language. According to
Horacio de la Costa, nationalism would not have been possible without the Spanish language. The 1897 Biak-na-Bato Constitution and the 1898 Malolos Constitution were both written in Spanish. Neither specified a national language, but both recognised the continuing use of Spanish in Philippine life and legislation. Spanish was used to write the
Constitution of Biak-na-Bato,
Malolos Constitution, the original
national anthem,
Himno Nacional Filipino, as well as nationalistic propaganda material and literature. In 1863, the Spanish language was taught freely when a primary public school system was set up for the entire population. The Spanish-speaking
Ilustrados (Enlightened Ones) were the educated elite who promoted and propagated nationalism and a modern Filipino consciousness. The Ilustrados and later writers formed the basis of
Philippine Classical Literature, which developed in the 19th century. José Rizal propagated Filipino consciousness and identity in Spanish. Highly instrumental in developing nationalism were his novels,
Noli Me Tangere and
El Filibusterismo which exposed the abuses of the colonial government and clergy, composed of "Peninsulares." The novels' very own notoriety propelled its popularity even more among Filipinos. Reading them was forbidden because they exposed and parodied the Peninsulares.
Philippine–American War The revolutionary
Malolos Republic of 1899 designated the Spanish language for official use in its
constitution, drawn up during the Constitutional Convention in
Malolos,
Bulacan. The nascent republic published a number of laws, acts, decrees, and other official issuances. They were published variously in the Spanish, English, and Tagalog, with Spanish predominating. Spanish was also designated the official language of the
Cantonal Republic of Negros of 1898 and the
Republic of Zamboanga of 1899.
American colonial period of 1916 in Spanish,
The Glorious Jones Law delivers a speech in Spanish (1929) After the
Philippine–American War and the subsequent incorporation of the Philippine archipelago to the dominion of the United States, one of the policies implemented by the new rulers was to institute the English language as the primary language of the country, designating it as the
medium of instruction, with the goal of bolstering the annual increase of the number of English-speaking population in the Philippines. However, in spite of this, the Spanish language maintained its hold in the educational system, as many private educational institutions, particularly those administered by religious orders, persisted in using the Spanish language. Only after
World War I did the American authorities started to press more and more for the private schools to teach in English, leading to important Catholic universities such as the
Ateneo de Manila and the
University of Santo Tomas to phase out Spanish in favor of English. The census of 1903 did not inquire the respondents regarding the language they spoke and understood, but it was asked in the 1918 census, in which it was reported that from a total population of 10,314,310, the number of Filipinos capable of speaking Spanish was 757,463 (or 7.34% of the total population), with 511,721 belonging to the male population and 245,742 belonging to the female population. In contrast, the number of English-speaking Filipinos was 896,258 (or 8.69% of the total population). Greater percentage of Spanish-speaking males compared to their English-speaking counterparts were found in Zamboanga, Manila, Isabela, Cotabato, Marinduque, Cagayan, Iloilo, Cavite, Albay, Leyte, Batangas, and Sorsogon. The province with the greater percentage of Spanish-speaking females compared to their English-speaking counterparts were found in Zamboanga, Cotabato, Manila, Davao, Ambos Camarines, Iloilo, and Sorsogon. The rest of the provinces had greater percentages of English-speaking people, with the provinces of Ifugao, Bontoc, Benguet, and Kalinga registering the greatest percentage of English-speaking males. The census also affirmed that those who learned to speak Spanish or English also possessed the ability to read and write in those languages. While the 1918 census confirmed the great boost in the position of the English language in the Philippines since the arrival of the first
Thomasites, Spanish still retained its privileged position in society, as was made clear by Henry Jones Ford, a professor from Princeton who was sent to the Philippines by the then American President
Woodrow Wilson for a "fact-finding mission". adding later on the following observations: He also made note of the increasing usage of the native vernacular languages through which the literature of Filipino politics reached the masses, with the native newspapers and magazines in the Philippines tending to be bilingual and with the regular form being a Spanish section and a section written in the local vernacular language, while none of them was published in English. Additionally, the most widely circulated American newspaper has a Spanish section. After the Silver Age came the period of decadence of the Philippine press written in Spanish, which Checa Godoy identified in the years of the 1920s and the 1930s. During this period, the number of Spanish-language newspapers and their circulation declined, while the presence of newspapers written in English and indigenous languages, especially Tagalog, increased and even overtook Spanish from its dominant position. The decline continued until the events of
World War II, which effectively ended the Spanish-language press in the Philippines. The census of 1939 showed the decline of the Spanish-speaking population in the Philippines, with the numbers slashed almost in half compared to the previous 1918 census: in a total population of approximately 16 million Filipinos, only 417,375 of them (or 2.6% of the population) are literate in the Spanish language. In 1934, the
Tydings–McDuffie Act excluded Spanish entirely from the curriculum of public schools, while the
1934 Constitutional Convention set 1940 as the expiry date of the usage of Spanish as the official language of the legislature and of the courts. The years of the American colonial period have been identified as the Golden Age of Philippine Literature in Spanish by numerous scholars such as Estanislao Alinea, Luis Mariñas and Lourdes Brillantes. One explanation given to such a designation was the rich volume of literary output produced during this era using the Spanish language. Among the great Filipino literary writers of the period were
Fernando María Guerrero,
Jesús Balmori,
Manuel Bernabé,
Claro M. Recto and
Antonio Abad. There were three reasons provided for this development, namely the relative freedom of expression during the
American period compared to the previous
Spanish colonial era, the publication venues provided by the Spanish language periodicals and periodicals written in other languages but with Spanish language sections, and the presence of the
Premio Zobel. However, Estanislao Alinea also referred to those years as the "Period of Efflorescence", highlighting the fact the behind the apparent vitality and productivity of these Spanish language writers lied the period of slow decadence and gradual decline of the language itself in the Philippines. Additionally, despite the relevance given to many of these writers in their social and nationalistic roles, even earning them an entry in the 1996
Encyclopedia of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), most of their literary works received scarce public reception even during their lifetime. According to Rocío Ortuño, the failure of their literary endeavours can be seen in the fact that some of their works were either left unpublished or, in case of their works published in periodicals, never compiled in volumes.
Decline of Spanish in May 1945 after the
Battle of Manila. Spanish flourished in the first two decades of the 20th century because of the partial freedom of the press and as an act of defiance against the new rulers. However, it soon declined afterwards as the U.S. administration began a heavier imposition of English as the official language and medium of instruction in schools and universities. Editorials and newspapers were increasingly forced to switch to English, leaving Spanish in a marginal position. One of the first U.S. provisions in the Philippines, following the recommendations of the Schurman Commission, was the prohibition of Spanish as the language of instruction in public schools. Despite the fact that in 1934 it was established that American sovereignty would cease in 1946, the new Philippine Constitution stated the obligation to maintain English as the sole language of instruction. It is significant that the American language policy had among its main objectives to turn the Filipinos into "a people who can govern themselves", an end for which they would need a common language: English. In order to preserve Spanish,
Enrique Zóbel de Ayala founded the
Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española and the
Premio Zóbel in 1924 to help maintain and develop the use of Spanish by the Filipino people. Filipino nationalists and nationalist
historiographers during the American colonial period took their liberal ideas from the writings of the 19th-century
Filipino propaganda, which portrayed Spain and all things Spanish as negative or evil. Therefore, Spanish as a language was
demonized as a sad reminder of the past. Those ideas gradually inculcated into the minds of the young generation of Filipinos (during and after the U.S. administration), which used those history textbooks at school that tended to generalize all Spaniards as villains because of lack of emphasis on
Filipino people of Spanish ancestry, who were also against the local Spanish government and clergy and also fought and died for the sake of freedom during the
19th-century revolts during the
Philippine Revolution, the
Philippine–American War, and the Second World War. By the 1940s, as children educated in English became adults, the use of Spanish started to decline rapidly. Still, a very significant community of Spanish-speakers lived in the largest cities, with a total population of roughly 300,000. However, with the destruction of
Manila during the
Japanese occupation in the Second World War, the heart of Spanish in the Philippines had been dismantled. Many Spanish-speaking Filipino families perished during the massacre and the bombing of the
cities and
municipalities between 1942 and 1945. By the end of the war, an estimated 1 million Filipinos had died. Some of the Spanish-speakers who survived were forced to migrate in the later years. After the war, Spanish became increasingly marginalized at an official level. As English- and American-influenced
pop culture increased, the use of Spanish in all aspects gradually declined. In 1962, Philippine President
Diosdado Macapagal decreed that the Philippines would mark
independence day on June 12, instead of July 4, when the country gained complete
independence from the United States. This reflected a tendency to paint Spain as the villain and the United States as a more benevolent colonial power. Spanish language and culture were demonized again. In 1973, Spanish briefly lost its status as an official language of the Philippines, was quickly redesignated as an official language, and finally lost its official status by the ratification of a subsequent constitution in 1987. A great portion of Spanish learners in the Philippines are in the social sciences, as until recently, many land titles, contracts, newspapers, and
literature were still written in Spanish. Some
Hispanista groups have even proposed making Spanish a compulsory subject again in school or having it used in administration, although the idea has elicited controversy among non-Spanish-speaking Filipinos. Under the administration of
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, relations between Spain and the Philippines strengthened.
Philippine–Spanish Friendship Day was established to commemorate the cultural and historical ties, friendship, and co-operation between the Philippines and Spain. Additionally, the
Department of Education reintroduced Spanish as an elective course in secondary schools in 2008. During her visit to the Philippines in July 2012,
Queen Sofía of Spain expressed her support for the Spanish language to be revived in Philippine schools, with 24 high school across the country offering the language as a subject. In September 2012, an agreement was made between the Philippine and
Chilean governments to train Filipino schoolteachers in Spanish while in exchange, the Philippines would help train Chilean schoolteachers in English. In 2018, the
Sangguniang Kabataan of Barangay Cagniog,
Surigao City passed a resolution declaring Spanish as one of the official working languages of the SK Barangay Cagniog which lead to enactment of an ordinance introduced by ex - SK Chairperson Frankie Salar and approved by
Sangguniang Barangay in 2021. Further, the Sangguniang Panglungsod Surigao returning the ordinance to barangay for amendments, the said ordinance aim to include the teaching the Spanish in the said Barangay. ==Current status==