THE PHILIPPINES and Spain had a rocky relationship during the colonization years.
We were looked upon as second-class citizens who weren’t deserving enough to learn the language the colonizers were using.
Now, if you stay in Madrid you will see how different the situation is. The people are nice and always greet you. When they learn you are from the Philippines they look at you in awe. They admire you for your ability to speak English and they even ask you to teach it to their kids.
It seems they are atoning for the way we were treated before, right?
Well that’s not exactly the case. Instead of atonement, it’s more of ignorance about what the relationship between our two countries was really like.
The other day during a Social Science lesson in my school, I quizzed the kids. I asked them to point out the Philippines on the world map. None of them could find it. They were even shocked to find out it was a part of Asia.
When another teacher explained how Spain lost custody of us, she said it happened when “Spain lost to America in the war.”
Well yeah, that’s it in a nutshell but that explanation doesn’t do justice to the battles fought on both the Filipino and Spanish end.
When I say that our language back home is Filipino and English is only our secondary language they give me confused looks.
“Filipino” is a language they never heard of before and apparently it even has some Spanish-inspired words! (Some of them have heard of Tagalog though so at least we have that going for us.)
So why is it like this now?
Well I have some factors that I think are the reasons. One is there are many people of different races in Madrid. Filipinos are not the only people that migrate in order to find a better life. Chinese, Africans, Arabs, Latinos…you can find all races here so another colored person wouldn’t really cause much alarm.
The next is the fact that the Philippines wasn’t the only colony of Spain. There were many in South America that had their Spanish regime, too, like Mexico. The colonies felt the presence and absence more than the colonizers did.
The last reason is the simple – passage of time. “Time heals all wounds” is how the saying goes and it faded the wounds of the colonization.
It’s the same as how the younger generation doesn’t feel as much pain or understand what happened during Marcos’ Martial Law compared to the generation directly affected by it. Since not all the Spaniards were involved in it and the details must not have been passed on, the story just faded away.
Well, that may be how it is with them, but it’s different for us, the effect can still be seen and felt now like with our “crab mentality” that’s borne from insecurity.
I am not blaming this generation of Spaniards though. I think that it’s us who have the responsibility to move forward. This country is opening its arms to us now and giving us chances that most of our ancestors didn’t have.
So for the pride of our nation, let us put our best foot forward./PN
