The Spanish Colonial Era

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 Filipinoborn 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.