Although colonized by Spain for over 300 years, the Philippines never became a Spanish-speaking nation, unlike Latin America. Why is that?

Jerald Macachor

Although colonized by Spain for over 300 years, the Philippines never became a Spanish-speaking nation, unlike Latin America. Why is that?

1. Philippines didn’t have a huge migration of Spanish-speaking immigrants unlike in the Americas. The native populations were not displaced to a large degree. Filipinos are not native Spanish speakers nor are we native English speakers.
2. The United States took over in 1899 from Spain and established their own public education initiatives in English. Before this time, the majority of Filipinos were not educated formally. This is normal throughout the non-European world at this time.
   
   
   Those that were educated during the Spanish period were educated in Spanish (no other curriculum existed). They could therefore read, write, and speak Spanish with varying degrees of ability based on how far they got in their education. College-educated Filipinos spoke and wrote Spanish at a high degree which can be seen in the writings of Filipino revolutionary leaders in 1890s.
   
   
   Filipinos today often say that Spanish was only for the elites. This is half true. The more accurate description is that it was for the educated. Before the American period, there was a considerable overlap between the elites and the educated. Most elites were likely educated. However, not all educated people were part of the elite.
   
   
   We speak English today because its the medium of instruction in school. Just as it is in the case of many other countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, India. Many countries of non-French populations speak French because it is a medium of instruction in schools like Algeria, Morocco, Haiti, and many African countries, etc.
   
   
   Its conceivable that had Filipinos continued to use Spanish as the medium of instruction, at least the educated ones would be able to speak Spanish.
3. During the American period, Spanish actually flourished as many people who were educated in the Spanish period were now in their adulthood. But as this generation died out around the 1960s, less and less people spoke Spanish, and English became more important.
   
   
   You can see this in our Presidents. Aguinaldo (1898), Quezon(1935), Osmena (1944), Quirino(1948), Laurel (1943), Roxas (1946), who were born and educated in the Spanish period were better in Spanish than English in some cases.
   
   
   Those who were born after generally preferred English or Tagalog in addressing the nation like Magsaysay (1953) and Marcos (1965). Some others like Macapagal (1961) and Garcia (1957) were proficient in both.
4. We were too far from Spain and Latin America. We didn’t have much use for Spanish because our foreign affairs were mostly conducted in English with the United States, and neighboring states like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia which were increasing in their English proficiency.
   
   
   Culturally, it was difficult to obtain media from Spanish-speaking countries that could have enriched the local Spanish-speaking population. No internet back then, no Telenovelas.
5. Introduction of the Tagalog language as a medium of instruction in the 1960s. Spanish and English coexisted for a time as languages for education. But as the Tagalog language because the basis of the Filipino language to be taught nationwide, it was probably a little too much for the people of a developing country to learn 3 languages at school. Eventually, Spanish was dropped officially in 1987.