Father Zúñiga[17] already declared in his time: “It has been ordered that books be not printed in the Tagálog language, that the Indians learn the doctrine in the Castilian language, and that the fathers preach to them in that language. The religious, in order to observe that command preached to them in Spanish and in Tagálog, but to ask them to confess some Indians who only knew the doctrine in a language which they did not understand and that the parish priests should be satisfied by preaching to their parishioners in a language of which the latter were ignorant, was almost the same as asking them for that which Diocletian asked from the Christians, and they would rather die willingly before fulfilling it.... In order that one may see the inconsistency of those who rule, it is sufficient to know their method of procedure in regard to plays. These Indians, as I have said, are very fond of plays, and the most influential people are those who become actors. Since such people do not generally know the Castilian language, they petition that they be allowed to play in their own language, and there is not the slightest hesitation in allowing plays in the Tagálog language in all the villages of this province, even in that of Binondo, which is only separated from the city [of Manila].
“And it is asked that the parish priests preach in Spanish!”[18]
In 1590, we find in the records of our province the following most note-worthy minute of the provincial chapter: “Likewise, it shall be charged upon all the ministers of the Indians that, just as the lads of the school are taught to read and to write, they also shall learn to talk our Spanish tongue because of the great culture and profit which follow therefrom (Archives of St. Augustine in Manila).” This was the rule made by the Augustinian fathers in 1590, and still there are some who accuse the religious of having been opposed to the diffusion of Castilian in Filipinas.
The decree in which the religious were charged to teach Castilian in the kingdoms of Indias is as follows: “By Don Felipe IV, in Madrid, March 2, 1634; and November 4, 1636, law v. That the curas arrange to teach the Indians the Castilian language and the Christian doctrine in the same language.
“We ask and charge the archbishops and bishops to provide and order in their dioceses the curas and instructors of the Indians, by using the gentlest means, to arrange and direct all the Indians to be taught the Spanish language, and that they be taught the Christian doctrine in that language, so that they may become more apt in the mysteries of our Catholic faith, and profit for their salvation, and attain other advantages in their government and mode of living.”—Book i, título xiii.
“We could cite other dispositions[19] but these are sufficient to cause the noble propositions of our governors-general and the first apostles of Christianity in that country to be appreciated. Apart from the fact that in former times the friar could not alone carry the weight of the extraordinary labor, which is inferred from the teaching of a language which can be contained in the head of but very few Indians, the aspiration that our language supplant the many which are spoken in Filipinas can be only completely illusory.”
We cannot resist the desire to reproduce here some paragraphs of the Carta abierta [i.e., open letter] which was directed through the columns of La Época by Señor Retana to Don Manuel Becerra, who was then minister of the Colonies.[20]
“I do not see, Señor Don Manuel, that a single Spaniard exists who would not be delighted to know that peoples who live many leguas from ours use the Spanish language as their own language. Why should we not be proud when we are persuaded that in both Americas live about forty millions of individuals who speak our beautiful language? Consequently, I esteem as most meritorious that vehement desire of yours to effect that there in Filipinas the Malays abandon their monotonous and poor dialects, and choose as their language that which we talk in Castilla. Very meritorious is it in fact among us to sustain so fine a theory; and I say, among us, for if you were English and set forth your laudable propositions in the House of Lords, or the House of Commons, of diffusing the language of the mother-country among the natives of unequal colonies, you may be assured, Señor Becerra, that on all sides of the circle there would come marks and even cries of disapproval. For it is a matter sufficiently well known in Great Britain and in Holland; and in a certain manner in France also, it is not maintained, not even in theory, that it is advisable for the conquered races to know the language of the ruling race. The great Macaulay, a liberal democrat, freethinker, a sincere and enthusiastic man, published his desire that Christianity be propagated in India, but he never spoke of a propagation of the English language in the Hindoostan Empire.
“Think, Señor Don Manuel, and grant me that if it were possible to please all the Spaniards to have our language propagated in all quarters of the world, there may be some persons who, thinking like the English, may conceive that that propagation would be unadvisable, from the viewpoint of politics.
“But by deprecating such tiquis miquis[21] since I hold, so far as I am concerned, that today our fellow countrymen who think in the English fashion in this manner are exceptional, let us come to the real root of the matter. It is an easy thing for you, Don Manuel, to see that it is practicable in a brief space of time to place the Castilian in the head of seven millions of Filipino Indians. Permit me to make a citation which is of pearls. Not many months ago the director of the royal college of the Escorial, or, to be more explicit, Fray Francisco Valdés, a man of superior talent who has lived in Filipinas for eighteen or twenty years, said: ‘Our language cannot be substituted advantageously for the Tagálog, so long as the social education of that people does not experience profound and radical transformations.’ And the same author adds: ‘And since the total transformation of the customs and manner of living of a race is not the work of one year, much less of one century, hence, our firm conviction that great as may be our strength and much as the fondness of the Indian for Castilian may be exaggerated, the latter will never be the common idiom of Filipinas.’