Most of the lowland Christian population of the Philippines did in fact, speak Spanish or at least understand enough of it. Apart from use by Europeans, It was in common use especially with the mostly mestizo Ilustrado class, which is similar to the middle class today. As an aside, it's also argued that Spanish literature in the Philippines experienced its renaissance in the 1920's and 1930's, decades after the Spanish ceded the Philippines to the USA.
The major difference would be that the class of people who used it as a language at home, mostly the European-born Spanish population (Peninsulares) and native-born Spanish (Insulares) were never quite that numerous compared to their counterparts in Latin America, thanks to the extreme distances they had to travel at the time. Even when Spanish was in general use for business, academia, and literature it never really became a language of the home for non-Spanish Filipinos. Native Filipinos and Chinese handily outnumbered Europeans for most of the time of the Spanish colony. Much more so than the case with Europeans and native populations in the Americas. Even if the educated natives and Chinese knew Spanish, it wasn't necessarily what they would speak at home, even when intermarriages did occur. Of course it didn't help that Spanish language education usually wasn't even taught in the few public schools that existed before the 19th century, in the last quarter of Spain's almost 400-year rule.
In some ways, Spanish really has come to persist in native Filipino languages - or dialects as you might incorrectly call them. Apart from Chavacano, which is a Spanish Creole through and through, Tagalog, Hiligaynon, Karay-a, Cebuano, Waray, Kapampangan offf the top of my head, have all been significantly influenced by Spanish, mostly in the vocabulary, but in many cases, grammar as well. None of the major Philippine languages are even that similar to how they were in terms of both vocabulary and grammar in the 16th century.
English kind of has the same status Spanish did before. Very few people relative to the population speak it at home, outside of a work or academic environment. Even when Filipinos speak English, chances are they will combine it will bits and pieces of local languages.
*The King's phrase : some Philippine literary and cultural perspectives by Miguel A. Bernad, S.J., 1917- 224 p. ©1998 Published by Office of the Research and Publications, Ateneo de, Quezon City ISBN 9715502490 *