LANGUAGE POLICIES IN THE PHILIPPINES DURING THE SPANISH COLONIZATION

In 1565, the fleet headed by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a Spanish explorer, reached
Cebu Island, and then the Spaniards started to colonize the Philippines islands.

During the Spanish regime, language policies were planned by the government in the
homeland and then conveyed in the form of royal decrees to the colony.

Spanish Colonization Romanized letters were introduced

The Decree in 1550-Issued By Carlos I in Valadolid in 1550(June 7)and reissued in
July 17.#demanded the teaching of Castilian in the Spanish colonies which was
issued before the colonization of the Philippines.

Instructions in 1596
King of Spain(Felipe I)sent to Telbo, Governor of the Philippine colony. An instruction
stated that learning of indigenous languages by the Friars was inadequate for
missionaries, instead the friars should teach Spanish to natives.

The Decree in 1603

The mentioned two decrees previously required the teaching of the Spanish
language but at the same time the Crown government demanded of friars to learn
indigenous languages probably because some of the friars were reluctant or
incompetent to master indigenous languages.

The Decree in 1634

Felipe M issued a decree demanding that the colonial government should teach
Spanish to all the natives, The previous decrees stated that Spanish teaching should
be given to natives who were willing to learn, not to all the natives.

The Decree in 1686

Carlos II issued a decree in which he complained that former decrees(issued in
1550,1634 and 1636)had not been observed and stated there would be punishment
if not observed.

The Decree In 1792

A similar type of decree was issued by Carlos N. in which he evoked the previous
decrees
(May 10, 1770,November 28,1772,November 24,1774)

The Ordinance 1768

Governor Solis issue the following law on October 19,1752,later it became
Ordinance 52 in 1768,This ordinance asked the
establishment of schools and prohibited any other language than Spanish in
schools. It staled that official jobs could be given lo those speaking Spanish
as an incentive to learning of Spanish.
Education Act in 1863
prescribed that Spanish was to be the sole medium of instruction to facilitate the
need to learn Spanish, so that literacy in Spanish appeared to be the major purpose
of the curriculum. To this end, the decree provided that natives who could not
speak, read, and write Spanish five years after its issuance were not to be permitted
to hold salaried government positions. This was the major motivation to induce the
Filipinos to study the language.