Edited sentence: Following the American occupation of the Philippines and the imposition of English, the use of Spanish declined gradually, especially after the 1940s.In 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal education, creating free public schooling in Spanish.It was also the language of the Philippine Revolution, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution proclaimed it as the official language of the First Philippine Republic.National hero José Rizal wrote most of his works in Spanish, Luciano de la Rosa, established that it was spoken by a total of 60% of the population in the early 1900s as a first, second or third language.Spanish was the original official language of the country for more than three centuries, and became the lingua franca of the Philippines in the 19th and early 20th centuries