Until 1987, Spanish was studied in Philippine schools as a mandatory subject. In 1973, a new Constitution annulled the status of Spanish as an official language.
The Spanish arrived in the Philippines in 1565 from the Moluccas Islands. Spanish was the language of the colonial administration and, starting in the 19th century, it was also the lingua franca in a highly fragmented country. It is still easy to find Filipinos aged 50 and over who can say a few phrases in Spanish, even though there has not been a native speaker for a long time.