I was under the impression that they speak Spanish in the philippines, but now I'm not sure as a fellow student who speaks portuguese says they speak portugese in the Philippines.

Does anyone know about this?

I'm not sure if that makes sense. It was the Spanish that had the Philippines for a long time and they do speak Spanish there. I don't remember the Portugese colonizing the Philippines.

Usually spanish was spoken (before 1940) in Philippines, by 15% of the population as first language and 70% as second/handle language. But now young people learn English and Tagalo, and the US influence its very big.
A philippine friend told me that now spanish it's only for families with spanish origin, or as cultural distinction.

for Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines
More than 170 languages and dialects are spoken in the country, almost all of them belonging to the Borneo-Philippines group of Malayo-Polynesian language branch of the Austronesian language family.

According to the 1987 Constitution, Filipino and English are both the official languages. Many Filipinos understand, write and speak English, Filipino and their respective regional languages.

Filipino is the de facto standardized version of Tagalog and the nation's official language. English is widely used as a lingua franca throughout the country, and is the second official language of the country.

Spanish in the Philippines was the original official language of the country for more than three centuries, but was used mainly by the educated illustrados (including José Rizal) or self taught natives and the Spanish authorities. Spanish was the language of Philippine Revolution, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution proclaimed it as the official language. Following the American occupation of the Philippines, its use declined, especially after 1940. Currently, only a few Mestizos of Spanish and Mexican descents speak it as their first language, although a few others use it together with Tagalog and English.

Both Spanish and Arabic are used as auxiliary languages in the Philippines. The use of Arabic is increasingly prevalent among Filipino Muslims and taught in madrasah (Muslim) schools.

Oh wow, so I guess we're both wrong, but I was more right than wrong since Spanish was spoken for a few centuries there. Many thanks for the info.

i found this topic through yahoo search

just to add Spanish was NOT spoken widely through Spanish-Philippines. this was because the spian did not want to Filipinos to get into politic.

through out the the whole era only 1.4 percent spoke Spanish.

There is a language called«chabacano» spoke in some parts of the Phillipines. Chabacano incorporates a lot of Spanish. Any Spanish speaker
will understand whole sentences in Chabacano. It's a creole language.

You're correct Poli chabacano is very similar to spanish. it was spoken by people who live in cebu, the place wherein Magellan landed when he came to the Philippines.If im not mistaken, 20 years or less spanish was part of the curriculum(secondary education), but the government decided to abolish the spanish subject, since there no more spanish in the Philippines.Old people still know some spanish words and can speak little spanish.

yes, chabacano is still spoken in Philippines but only spoken in Zamboanga. it's more like broken Spanish. like a 2 years old would first learn to talk or like pig Latin. you can some what understand the words but its being spoken weird. see these poeple were their like "test" subjects. they didn't do a every good job in teaching them so thats why it sounds that way.

sorry Spanish was never taught in Philippines before or even after Spanish-Philippines. at the end of the colonial era. only 1-2% spoke spoke Spanish in Philippines and these would be either the Spanish "sidekicks" or themselves. people did learn it after education was free but still Filipino didn't take to it.

and Magellan was killed soon after he came to Philippines it would take another 50 years for Spain to come back to Philippines and another what close to 75 years to est. a government there. and throughout this war was being fought from North and South against them.