Why is the official language of the Philippines English?

Many Chinese have been to the Philippines for sightseeing and found that as long as they can speak English, they don't have to worry about communication problems at all. All kinds of road signs and store names are also in English. Why did Spain colonize for 300 years, while the United States only had a short period of 50 years? What about English instead of Spanish?

The country name of the Philippines comes from Spanish, and the surname of Filipinos is also born out of Spanish. Spain colonized the Philippines for nearly 400 years, but it did not allow Filipinos to popularize Spanish. This is related to the three characteristics of Spain's colonization at that time.

Spain's colonial area against the Philippines only accounts for 1/3 of the entire Philippines, and there is no driving factor for widespread dissemination in the region.

During the Spanish colonization, there were not a large number of native immigrants to the Philippines. The original islanders of the Philippines had a large population, making the original culture of the island still dominant.

Spanish colonists did not allow civilians to use Spanish, and only people in the upper class could use Spanish. This only includes Spanish colonists and Filipino aristocrats.

Therefore, until the end of Spanish colonial rule, the Spanish-speaking population of the Philippines accounted for only 3%, mainly the aristocratic elite.

However, during the American colonization, the Americans established a complete education system in the Philippines. The United States allows Filipino children to learn English from elementary school until universities adopt all-English teaching. Send a large number of English teachers from the United States to teach and build a complete English teaching system.

In addition, the United States has also exported a large number of English books to the Philippines. English books can be seen everywhere in bookstores, even newspapers are printed in English, and there are a large number of English programs on TV.

Second, Americans are trying to suppress the use of Spanish by Filipinos and require Filipinos to use English in the workplace and public life.

In the end, the Battle of Manila destroyed most of the capital Manila, where Spanish-speaking Filipinos were mostly concentrated, many of whom died in the war. The Spanish-speaking population of the Philippines has been greatly reduced.