You are right Chris. You know they say history is written by the winners and since Aguinaldo was captured by the invading US troops in 1901, there was a thorough attempt to delete anything Spanish from the Philippines. So, right now, Filipinos do not even know that 30% of their vocabulary come from Spanish, they just think it is a bunch of words like the days of the week and so.
As far as I know, Spanish stopped being official in 1986 under the Cory Aquino administration. The man in charge was, of course, of US origin. Currently, the shame on the cultural development of the Philippines is that learning Arabic gives you university credits while Spanish does not. Let's remember that Arabic is no less foreigner to the Philippines than Spanish. Muslims invaders arrived to the islands only 70 years before the Spaniards!
My general view is, the Philippines can only develop culturally through Tagalog and the other main local languages. It is because the soul of the people and the land is embedded in it. English or Spanish are foreign and alienating. However, for the Filipinos to be able to understand their past in their way to their future, there should be a better knowledge of Spanish. Those Filipinos who have learned Spanish, and have immersed somehow in a Spanish-speaking context, suddenly re-discover unknown ties and have a better understanding of their own society. That is my experience.
May I invite you to have a browse to my multilingual blog?
http://mexicanomalo.blogspot.com
