Dear Tony:
No, it is Ilocano, the language of Northern Philippines, 2nd or 3rd largest of the 7 major Filipino languages. Pilipino is the "national" language, based on Tagalog.
All of the major languages were later influenced by Spanish. But those Filipinos you heard speaking in "Spanish" might have been Chavacanos, a minority (from Cavite and Zamboanga) who sprinkle their "Spanish" with some Pilipino words!
The Philippines, as a country, spoke Spanish up to the 1920s or even later. But with the American colonization in place since 1898, English became more and more the 2nd language of the majority.
By the 1960s, our Congress passed a law removing Spanish as a required language to learn. We lost our hispanic indentity by then and became those "little brown Americans!" Fortunately, we remained Catholic to this day (3rd largest in the world next to Brazil and Mexico), courtesy of madre Espana.
Today, you hear Filipinos speaking in "Taglish," a crazy combination of Pilipino, Spanish, and English, reflecting our 3 official languages.
However "Papa," with the accent on "a" as you correctly put, is also the term of endearment for a "father" for ALL Filipinos, Ilocanos included!
I really don't know how and why Ilocanos came to call wild ducks "papa" (without the accent) because we, likewise, call domesticated ducks, male or female, "pato!" "Pata" to us is not a female duck but refers to pork hock!
Amado
