has grown to 80 schools spread across all regions of the country. Language assistance is provided from Spain to train and provide scholarships for Spanish language teachers. , interest in learning Spanish has largely been for economic purposes due to some demand for Spanish speakers from business process outsourcing companies in the Philippines or job prospects abroad in the United States, which have made a number of Filipinos flock to language centers such as Instituto Cervantes to learn Spanish. Demographics According to the 1990 Philippine census, there were 2,660 native Spanish speakers in the Philippines. In 2013, there were also 3,325 Spanish citizens living in the country. Figures in 2020 showed about 400,000 Spanish speakers with at least proficient knowledge, which accounts for under 0.5% of the population. This is a steep decline from 1998, when there were 1.8 million Spanish speakers, including those who spoke Spanish as a secondary language. Media Spanish-language media were present in the 2000s with one Spanish newspaper, E-Dyario, becoming the first Spanish digital newspaper published in the Philippines. Also, Filipinas, Ahora Mismo was a nationally syndicated, 60-minute, cultural radio magazine program in the Philippines that was broadcast daily in Spanish for two years in the 2000s. On September 15, 2020, a new online magazine La Jornada Filipina was launched by Arvyn Cerézo. Phonology The main difference between Philippine Spanish and Peninsular Spanish is that Filipinos speak with an accent inherited from local Austronesian languages. In the Philippines, the and sounds, as in olla ("pot") and hoya ("pit"), are often distinguished. prototypically occurs as , though it is sometimes realized as , especially among the most recent generation of speakers. , on the other hand, is typically realized as an approximant in all positions, rarely ever occurring as a fricative or affricate like in other Spanish dialects. Filipinos also often distinguish between the / sound and the sound. However, the non-learned population generally merges the sound, written /, with the sound, written . Others, especially more modern speakers, may inconsistently distinguish and , sometimes even in the same word. Moreover, – distinction does not occur in Chavacano; instead, Spanish words with or are all loaned into Chavacano with being used for both phonemes. The velar fricative , known in Spanish as "jota", is strongly fricated , resembling Peninsular Spanish. It is also occasionally pronounced as glottal due to most Philippine languages lacking a phoneme but