The Spanish colonial era

Spanish was first introduced to the Philippines in 1565, when the conquistador,
Miguel López de Legazpi founded the first Spanish settlement on the island of Cebu. The
Philippines, ruled from Mexico City was a Spanish territory for 333 years (1565-1898).

Although the language was never compulsory while under Spanish colonial rule, Spanish
was at one time spoken by around 10% of the population. It was the first and only
language of the Spanish and Filipino-Spanish mestizos minority, and the second but most
important language of the educated native Ilustrados. The stance of the Roman Catholic
Church and its missionaries was also to preach to the natives in local languages, and not
in Spanish. The priests and friars preached in local languages and employed indigenous
peoples as translators, creating a bilingual class known as ladinos. The natives, generally
were not taught Spanish, but the bilingual individuals, notably poet-translator Gaspar
Aquino de Belén, produced devotional poetry written in the Roman script in the Tagalog
language. 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 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.

A reason that Spanish did not expand as much as it did in the Americas is attributed to the
fact that the archipelago was not a direct colony of Spain, but instead was administered
from Mexico City (in what was then New Spain) thereby lessening the possibility of large
scale Spanish migration to the Philippines. Another reason is the large distance separating
Spain from the Philippines as compared to the Americas. Yet another is the actual
population of Spaniards settling in the Philippines was believed to be quite less than that
of the Americas.

The more important reason however, is that the Philippines was prevented from
consolidating its independent statehood under the First Philippine Republic and the
Constitution of Malolos in 1899, which had established Spanish as the sole official
language and would have continued the use of Spanish in public schools and universities
as the medium of instruction. This would have increased the numbers of Filipino Spanish
speakers considerably in a few generations, a phenomenon which took place in most
Hispanic countries in Latin America after their independence during the 19th century. In
the Philippines this was frustrated due to the US occupation and change of educational
policy. Indigenous Philippine languages remained in use and Spanish was substituted for
English as the medium of instruction. Also crucial in explaining the decrease of Spanish
was the Philippine-American War in which thousands of Spanish-speaking Filipinos
perished. In the 20th century, the US colonial governments increasingly marginalized
Spanish by gradually forcing the press, schools and other institutions to abandon this
language.

In 1593, the first printing press was founded. A great portion of the colonial history of the
Philippines is written in Spanish. Up until recently, many land titles, contracts,
newspapers and literature were still written in Spanish, and though it is no longer an
official language, legal documents in Spanish are still recognized in Filipino courts of
law.

The Universidad de Santo Tomas, one of the oldest existing educational institutions in
Asia, was inaugurated in 1611 and continues to this day as the property of both Spain and
the Roman Catholic church. Hence, the words "Royal" and "Pontifical" are part of the
university's official title.

In 1863, Queen Isabel II of Spain decreed the establishment of a public school system.

The role of Spanish in rising nationalism

Propagandists during the Spanish era spread nationalism through Spanish. José Rizal's
novels Noli Me Tangere, Graciano López-Jaena's satirical articles, Marcelo Hilario del
Pilar's anti-clerical manifestos, the bi-weekly La Solidaridad (published in Spain) and
other materials in awakening nationalism were written in Spanish. The country's first
constitution was written in Spanish, as well as the National Anthem. The constitution
proclaimed Spanish as an official language. According to Horacio de la Costa,
nationalism would not have been possible without Spanish. It is through Spanish that
natives became aware of nationalistic ideas and independence movements in other
countries.

Spanish was used by the first Filipino patriots like José Rizal, Andrés Bonifacio and
Emilio Aguinaldo, who chose Spanish as the national language of independent
Philippines. Spanish was used to write the country's first constitution, Constitución
Política de Malolos, the original national anthem, (Himno Nacional Filipino), as well as
nationalistic propaganda material and literature, like José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere.
Indeed, Philippine nationalism was first propagated in the Spanish language.

During the Spanish colonial era, and also through the early American period, Philippine
nationalism, government reforms, the country's first constitution and historic novels were
written in Spanish. While not widely understood by the majority of the population,
Spanish at this time was nonetheless the unifying language since Tagalog was not as
prominent or ubiquitous as it is today and each region had their own culture and
language, and would rather speak in their local languages. Denizens of each region
thought of themselves as Ilocano, Cebuano, Bicolano, et cetera, and not as Filipinos.

Throughout the colonial era the term "Filipino" originally referred to only the Filipino-
born Spaniards and Filipino mestizos; while indigenous Filipinos (who are referred to as
Indios) referred to them as 'Castila' or 'Cachila'.

The Ilustrados or "The Enlightened Ones", which included Philippine-born Spaniards,

certain Mestizos, Sangleys (or Chinese mestizos) and prominent indigenous Filipinos,
were the educated elite who promoted and propagated nationalism and a modern Filipino
consciousness. The unifying force is primary reasons historians say that the Spanish
authorities did not want to promote the language.

Propaganda in Spanish

José Rizal propagated Filipino consciousness and identity in Spanish. One material
highly instrumental in developing nationalism was the novel Noli Me Tangere (Latin for
"Do not touch me") which exposed abuses of the Spanish government and clergy.
Nevertheless, Rizal promoted the use of the indigenous languages.

The novel Noli Me Tangere's very own notoriety among the Spanish authorities,
government and clergy, propelled its popularity even more among Filipinos. Reading it
was forbidden because it exposed and parodied Spanish clergy and government authority.

Decline of the Spanish language

Spanish has been in decline since the 20th century due to the introduction of the English
language, "lacked" of promotion to the public sphere and guidance by the Filipino government.

During World War II many of the century’s old Spanish-speaking families of Philippines migrated
to Spain, Latin America and the United States following the US bombing of Intramuros home to
thousands of Spanish-speaking families. Many migrated also during the Marcos regime. By 1940
the number of Spanish-speakers in the Philippines was approximately 6 million, however, as a
percentage of the total population the numbers had actually dropped. By the 1950 Census
Spanish-speakers constituted 6% of the population, down from a 10% peak. However, down
through the 1960s and 1970s, Filipinos were still being exposed to the Spanish language through
print and audiovisual media even before they learned to speak Filipino or English.

Spanish was abolished as an official language in 1973 during the Marcos regime and as a
compulsory school subject in 1987 by Corazon Aquino.

The state of Spanish today

Today, Spanish is only used for cultural heritage purposes and on an optional basis.
Recently there seems to have been a resurgence in interest in the language among
educated youth as seen in recent survey by the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española
(English: Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language), which showed that there were
roughly 2,900,000 Spanish speakers in the Philippines (as a first, second, third, or fourth
language) in 2006. The language is spoken and maintained mostly by Spanish Filipinos
living in minor communities throughout the country.