Instituto Cervantes and our Spanish heritage - ROSES AND THORNS by Alejandro R. Roces

Last Friday, the Instituto Cervantes gave its second annual award for journalistic works published in our local newspapers in the year 2000 that emphasized on the significance of Spanish as an International Language and its special meaning for Filipinos. Philippine history began with Ferdinand Magellan’s discovery of our islands. In one generation, the Spanish Empire gained more territory than the Roman Empire did in 500 years.

It was Magellan who discovered and named the Pacific Ocean and when the Spanish Empire extended to the Philippines, it became the very first empire on which the sun never sets. This became the hallmark of the British Empire. But it was not original.

In Pastor Fide, Guardini spoke of Philip II of Spain as "that proud monarch to whom when it grows dark (elsewhere), the sun never sets." In his Advertisements for the Unexperienced, Captain John Smith also noted: "The brave Spanish soldiers brag, the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shines on one part or another that we have conquered for our King." The Philippines is composed of the islands in Southeast Asia that were conquered and colonized by Spain. The past is more than prologue. If we don’t know the past, we cannot understand the present. Historian T. B. Macaulay went deeper when he wrote, "No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present."

We were pleased that the first prize in the 2nd annual Instituto Cervantes award went to an article by Carmencita H. Acosta who wrote an article entitled "Return of Spanish in curriculum necessary to know Philippine history." She started her article by saying that almost all records pertaining to the Philippines in the 20th century are written in English. To know Philippine history in the 20th century, one has to know English. If one wants to go back farther in Philippine history, one has to know Spanish. How true! Carmencita H. Acosta believes that the Philippines should be Asia’s Spanish language capital. How right!

Second prize went to Guillermo Gomez Rivera who wrote for the Adamson University paper. He reminded his readers that the novels and Last Farewell of Rizal were written in Spanish. So were the works of other great Filipino writers such as Claro M. Recto, Teodoro M. Kalaw and Manuel Bernabe.

Pio Andrade Jr., received the third prize for his piece entitled Chinese Chabacano. It’s a very amusing piece that clearly showed the extent of Spanish dissemination. It was not only Cavite and Zamboanga that had chabacano. Even the Chinese had their pidgin version.

The Instituto Cervantes awards covered radio and television. Unfortunately there were no candidates. We hope that by this year, some radio and television programs that will show interest and concern for the Filipino’s first exposure to a world language. Incidentally, with rare exception, almost all Filipino given and family names are Spanish.