How good were Filipino writers in Spanish?

I am very honored and happy to teach that odd thing called “Philippine Literature in Spanish” at the University of Santo Tomas. This is also my main field of research though not the only one; fields in the humanities are deeply interconnected, and pushed by simple curiosity, it is easy to move from colonial studies or Latin American literature to ethnography or literary history. But this is what I am teaching and what I am more inclined to do research on right now. During the colonial period, we saw the introduction of Western ways to perform texts, mostly — although not only — by Spaniards. Representations of Filipino people in colonial texts interest me a lot.

From the second half of the nineteenth century, we see the eclosion of a constellation of Filipino authors. Rizal is the most shining star but, as I pointed out before in this column, not the only one. Pedro Paterno, Gregorio Sanciangco, Isabelo de los Reyes and Pardo de Tavera were also outstanding. Few people know that the most flourishing moment of literary production in Spanish did not occur during the Spanish period, but during the US colonial domination. Filipino intellectuals and patriots fully rejected US tutelage of Philippine politics and the economy. Newspapers in Spanish were, at least until the 1930s, the majority and the most important, and every day, every single day, Filipino writers, politicians and journalists called for the right to self-government. The loss of the Spanish language in the Philippines has caused Filipinos to forget that, even if they did not use a revolutionary way to get free of the US, claims for independence were as strong then as at the end of the 19th century. Those Filipino newspapers that sadly very few can read now, are the living proof that patriotism and the desire for independence did not decrease during the US period.