Prospects of a ‘Kastilaloy’ nation

Enduring ties between the Philippines and Spain, its former colonizer, were proven once more during the visit of Queen Sofia, consort of King Juan Carlos of Spain, and herself a fairly frequent visitor to the country.

This time around, Queen Sofia was in the country to “check on the progress of the development projects funded by the Spanish government,” including those on disaster risk reduction in Bicol, entailing a royal visit to Albay, one of the provinces most afflicted by typhoons, floods and volcanic eruptions.

Through Aecid, or Agencia Española de Cooperacion para el Desarullo (roughly, Spanish Agency of Cooperation for Development), the Spanish government funds projects that range from good governance, the peace process, gender awareness and health, to disaster risk reduction and climate change.

A photo on the front page of another newspaper shows the queen in a colorful blouse and white slacks, surrounded by schoolchildren in Camalig, Albay. This surely is a symbol of the amity and friendship that our two countries share despite still-lingering memories of three centuries of colonial rule and a violent, blood-soaked revolution.

But in an irony of history and cultural assimilation, ties between the Philippines and Spain today are nothing but warm and friendly. Relatives and friends visiting Spain say that Spaniards are always pleasantly surprised when they find out their new acquaintances are Filipinos, recalling the “special ties” between our two countries. “They still seem to look on the Philippines as a special relation,” a cousin recalled. And Filipinos, no doubt, feel kinship with Spaniards and Spain, not just because of our shared history but also because of lingering traces of Spanish culture in our language, food, habits (the siesta, for one), architecture, and most especially religion. Not to mention the traces of Spanish blood in many families, be these members of the social elite who can trace their ancestry to Castilian forebears, or even Filipinos in humbler circumstances who can trace their fair features to a wandering Kastilaloy, including an amorous friar or two.

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Noteworthy was the mention made by Queen Sofia (she changed the spelling of her name from the original Greek “Sophia” to conform to the Spanish spelling after her engagement to Juan Carlos) of the efforts to reintroduce the Spanish language in our public schools.

Reviving the teaching of the Spanish language (which used to be a required subject in college) was a positive step, she said, “not only because it is the past cultural heritage of the Philippines but also because it opens up opportunities to secure the well-being of future generations of Filipinos in a globalized world.”

Indeed, the proliferation and growth of the global outsourcing industry here have made the study of foreign languages a priority among young Filipinos. A cousin-in-law of mine, for instance, raised her children on a mix of Filipino, English and Spanish to honor her mestizo origins. But growing up, her children would cringe in embarrassment whenever their mother spoke to them in Spanish in public. Her eldest daughter, however, found out there was a silver lining to this trilingual upbringing when she joined the call center industry and is now making good money training more call center agents in conversational Spanish.

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But will the Philippines turn into a Kastilaloy nation soon? Given how language training, especially in our public schools, has deteriorated to such an extent that students, complain teachers, can hardly write or speak straight sentences in English or Filipino, hoping to turn a significant number of Pinoy youngsters into Spanish speakers remains at best a remote dream.

With the introduction of “mother tongue” education in the early years, supplemented by Filipino and English as students move on to the intermediate grades, it seems a tall order to make them learn Spanish as well.

I am old enough to remember when high school students were still required to take a year of Spanish language education, although all I can remember from those classes was a song called “Pan y Leche” (Bread and Milk). In college, at the centuries-old Dominican-run University of Santo Tomas, no less, we took two semesters of Spanish, starting with conversational Spanish and moving on to reading and writing the language. I had hoped to be able to read Rizal and the rest of the Propagandists in the original, but apparently the Spanish they used was a florid version, no longer in current use.

I am sad to report that my Spanish remains rudimentary at best, as proven during a recent visit to Colombia when I sent my Colombiana friends into stitches when I said I was ready to “morir” (die), when I really meant I was ready to go to bed.

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We also tend to think of ourselves as very “Spanish” at heart, since we seem to be more Latin—emotional, sentimental, demonstrative and noisy—than our Asian neighbors. But that trip to Colombia proved that Filipinos are just as much “Asian”—loath to offend, slow to complain, but quick to take offense.

I am sure Queen Sofia found many things in common with her Filipino hosts, starting with the exuberant welcome, the fascination with a real-life queen among us, and certain words we have in common. But if she had only stayed on beyond her 4-day visit, she may have found out that Filipinos are more complex than we may seem on the outside.

We seem to have imbibed the “spirit” of the Latin joy for life, and certainly our religiosity and affinity with the divine. But scratch beyond the surface, and you will find our Malay core, our sensitivity but also our pride.