From 2012, Spanish will become a compulsory subject in schools in the Philippines. The Spanish government will contribute to the training of Spanish teachers in the islands and to the development of teaching materials. The two countries agreed on this today at a meeting in the Spanish city of Barcelona.

The island group in the western Pacific was a Spanish colony for over three centuries. Spanish rule ceased in 1898, when it was taken over by the United States. It became independent in 1946.

Spanish was scrapped as one of the Philippines' official languages in 1987. Since then it has been superseded by English and local dialects. Owing to the steady decline in the number of colonists from Europe, Spanish is spoken far less in the Philippines than in former Spanish colonies in Latin America.