I have just received a news that the Department of Education will be putting back the Spanish language of part of the new curriculum fpr school year 2009. If this is so, will Filipinos start their own Spanish blogs soon?
Philippines have been under the rule of the Spanish colonizers for over three centuries. During that time, Spanish was the national language of the country. The 333 years of Spanish occupation however wasn't able to put the native languages to its end.
In 1937, Spanish was put off and Pres. Manuel L. Quezon put Tagalog as the official national language of the Philippines and Spanish as one of the official languages. Both languages, as well as English, were taught in school then.
It was in 1987 when Pres. Cory Aquino, with the the drafting of the new constitution, abolished Spanish as one of the official language of the Philippines and put Filipino (same as Tagalog) as the national language. Learning Spanish in college level were also abolished, aside from those courses staudying foreign language. Since then, the use of Spanish in the country started to deteriorate and most of the present generation of Filipinos do not have a grasp of the Spanish language.
But recently, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said Spanish language will be re-introduced in schools run by the government. However, it will only be available to schools that have mastered English as a second language.
Sec. Lapus said it will be part of the Special Programme in Foreign Language for government-run high schools in different parts of the country.
I'm excited to see blogs written in Spanish with Filipinos commenting also in Spanish. That would be exciting, ain't it?
