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The Spanish Influence

Spain colonized the Philippines for almost 333 years so it is evident that there are visible proofs of the
Spanish influence in our beliefs or religion, political systems, language, culture and society. We say
that done are the days when we were captured but we fail to realize the Spaniard’s influences that we
practice up until now. It is evident that we still practice the Spanish influences as a way of life of
Filipinos. To start off the best example of this is the influence in our religion. They were the first who
introduced Christianity to our country and converted the early Filipino inhabitants from primal religion
to Roman Catholicism. This is not just an influence in religion but also a permanent influence in
culture and society.

An influence in the culture and society, in the sense that they developed systems for Christianizing
Filipinos, one is the encomienda, charity organization wherein Spaniards are rewarded for their
charitable works or for the collection of tributes for the church from the natives living within the
boundaries and in return for their given tributes the encomienderos will look after their spiritual welfare
and the solemnity of the community. While other one is the reduccion system, wherein natives that
lived on the outskirts of town undergo resettlement in order to gather them into communities and
villages so that they can be near the premises of the church in that way the church can play a central
role in the citizen’s lives. This type of structural organization of buildings and houses is still found
today everywhere across the country, this symbolizes the Spaniards’ cultural influences in the Filipino
lives.

Remodeling the Filipino culture and society in accordance to the Spanish standard. Another is the
Spaniard’s influence to the Philippine political system, the title of the positions in congress may have
changed but the structural organization has a distinct resemblance to that of the Spanish rule, for
example alcalde mayor down to the cabeza de barangay that plays similar roles as the present
governors down to the barangay captains they share the same purpose of enforcing the law and
imposing uncorrupt leadership over their constituents. Lastly, is the Spanish influence to the
Philippine language, the Filipino people has several native languages like Cebuano, Bisaya , Ilonggo,
Ilocano, Chavacano and many more but still if you analyze it carefully they are just thousands of
Spanish words that we borrowed or adapted from the Spaniards or the so called Spanish “loanwords”.

Their influence is evident even by the way we name our utensils (kutsara, plato, etc.), counting
numbers (uno, dos, tres), and even our surnames (Villanueva, Estacion, Oracion). Good or bad we
can’t deny the Spanish influence in the Filipino culture because their influence is permanently
embedded in our culture and it cannot be undone. But nevertheless we responded to it selectively
which means we only adapted those influences that seemed to be fitting to the progress of the
country, enabling us to blend with the indigenous lifestyle therefore producing our own Philippine
cultural heritage.
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