español, por favor?

I come from a country colonized by Spain for more than three centuries. Christianity is the pre-dominant faith, introduced by the conquiztadores when they came looking for spices and precious metals. We have surnames like Reyes, Garcia, Marquez and Santos, and we eat lechon, paella and chorizos. The Spanish left so many marks on our culture but, heck, they forgot to leave their language.

Unlike the Latin American countries conquered by the Spanish armada, Spanish never became the lingua franca of the Filipino nation. Sure, our local dialects are peppered with lots of Spanish words, and the national greeting “Kumusta?” is a bastardized version of the Spanish “Como esta?”, but that’s all there is to it. Instead, we learned English, propagated by the Thomasites, the American teachers who came to the Philippines in the early 20^th century to educate Juan dela Cruz.

So now we are one of the biggest English-speaking countries (but not necessarily among the best) in the world, and it’s not uncommon and unusual to hear brown-skinned sorts   trying terribly hard to fake an American accent. Call centers have sprouted all over and have become one of the biggest employment providers in the country, all because of the Filipino’s English language proficiency and very trainable tongues ("With what accent do you want me speak, ma’am – British or American?"). And yes, hordes of South Korean kids have made Manila an extension of Seoul because they want to learn English.

No, I have nothing against English being the Philippines’ second language. Our ability to speak this most international of languages has given Filipino workers a competitive edge in the global market, and it has made travelling to other countries a lot easier. (I once sat beside a French woman who repeatedly muttered, “Je ne parle pas anglais!” on a Lufthansa flight to Ghana and boy, did we understand each other!)

I am grateful to the American educators who imparted their language to us, but how I wish that the Spaniards who gave us siesta and fiestas bothered to teach us their language while they were exploiting our natural resources. But no, those haughty Spanish friars who spoke of God but lusted for gold deemed Filipino Indios too insolent to be taught their Castillan tongue.

So now, as I reread Don Quixote and listen to Alejandro Sanz (¡eres muy divino, señor Sanz!), I am once more cursing the Spanish colonizers for their failure to teach my forebears their beautiful language. Because if they did, I’d be reading Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece – not to mention Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ novels and Pablo Neruda’s poems - in its original form, instead of a second-rate English translation. ¡Que pena!