Nope, the Philippines most likely did not play football under Spain

There's an article on Rappler entitled "Remembering the Philippines as a football nation". It discusses the history of Philippine football, and its current status. The facts are mostly right, except for these two passages:

Before hoops fever engulfed the nation, the Philippines was an Asian football powerhouse.

That was the thesis sentence right below the title. Then, there were these series of paragraphs:

The Philippine Football Federation dates as far back as 1907. As a Spanish colony, the primary sport of the Philippines was football. The first ever football tournament in Asia, the Far Eastern Games, was held in the country in 1913 where we beat China for the championship with a scoreline of 2-1.
The Philippines' footballing ways started to diminish when America took over the country as their new colonial rulers. Little by little, football was ignored and overlooked by sponsors and the government itself. It was also throughout those years that basketball was introduced by the Americans, a sporting frenzy that survives until this very day.

I removed the paragraph about Paulino Alcantara, the greatest Filipino footballer of all time, as I had no problem with it. What he didn't say about Alcantara's Barcelona club record is that Lionel Messi, yes, that Lionel Messi, was that player who broke our man's record.

First, we'd go to the thesis sentence.

Before hoops fever engulfed the nation, the Philippines was an Asian football powerhouse

 We'd have to assume three facts:

1. There was a time that the Philippines was "an Asian football powerhouse."
2. At the time that the Philippines was "an Asian football powerhouse.", "hoops fever" did not "engulf the nation" 
3. There was a concept of "an Asian football powerhouse" in the first place in 1913.

Wait, I used 1913, because he followed up that with this:

The Philippine Football Federation dates as far back as 1907. As a Spanish colony, the primary sport of the Philippines was football. The first ever football tournament in Asia, the Far Eastern Games, was held in the country in 1913 where we beat China for the championship with a scoreline of 2-1.

So, our baseline is 1913.
Now, you may have studied Philippine history, but you may have encountered this passage for the very first time:

As a Spanish colony, the primary sport of the Philippines was football.

Organized football didn't spring up until the mid-19th century in England. The first rules were codified in Cambridge in 1848. The Football Association was founded in 1863. and the first international match between England and Scotland was played in 1870. As always, British ex-pats introduced the sport to Spain, in late 19th century; the country oldest club was founded in 1889.

We may now pinpoint the exact year that football was introduced to Spain, but we can deduce that it was before 1889. For comparison, the oldest football association in Asia, the Singapore FA, was founded in 1892, and FIFA was founded in 1905. The Spaniards may have been playing the beautiful game by the late 1870s, and they could've imported the sport in the country quite a bit of time later.

Trivia: if you're thinking about the Ilustrados, what "sport" do you have in mind? In other words, if the Ilustrados played sport amongst themselves, what would be it? Fencing, of course! There was even this photo of Rizal playing this sport. I heard he was a pretty adept chess player, too. And the Luna brothers loved guns. Okay, enough of this Rizal myth-making. It's quite clear that if the Ilustrados played football, we should've read about it by now.

Does that mean that when the Philippines was a Spanish colony, were people playing football? You'd have to assume two things: that the colonial Spanish government are actively promoting sport, of which such activities could develop a national identity, and that the colonial Spanish government are actively promoting anything at all. And they'd have to do that in 1880s up to the eruption of the Philippine Revolution in 1896. The beginning of the end of Spanish occupation in the Philippines, the Cavite Mutiny where the Gomburza were executed, occurred in 1872. Good luck with that. If there were athletic events during this period, it's cockfights or the actual Revolution per se. Check out Rizal's novels. Were there even stadiums at this time? Cockpits, surely. How about venues where people can watch other people play? I don't know of any.

So, was the primary sport of the Philippines was football when it was a Spanish colony? The answer is most likely no. It could have been played at this time, but to describe at the primary sport is stretching it a bit.

Now, on to these paragraphs:

The first ever football tournament in Asia, the Far Eastern Games, was held in the country in 1913 where we beat China for the championship with a scoreline of 2-1.
The Philippines' footballing ways started to diminish when America took over the country as their new colonial rulers. Little by little, football was ignored and overlooked by sponsors and the government itself. It was also throughout those years that basketball was introduced by the Americans, a sporting frenzy that survives until this very day.

Let's again have a Philippine history lesson. By 1899, the Spanish were losing, and the Spanish governor general famously remarked that they can never beat Aguinaldo. But, don't worry, the Americans are off to save their sorry arses, and bought the Philippines. Aguinaldo surrendered in 1901 thanks to treachery from a fellow Filipino. The "Philippine Insurrection" was soon over, and things were stabilized in 1907 that they were able to hold elections.

Repeat: At around 1901-ish, Americans gradually asserted their control. In 1901. the Thomasites arrived. That's our threshold: the Thomasites. Once they started teaching, they introduced American culture to the country. And this was before 1907, the year the PFF was founded.

Looking at the paragraph above, it's structured that football was phased out after this 1913 win. The thing is, American culture had already penetrated the country at this point. The Far Eastern Games was like the Asian Games of old, and football wasn't only the sole team sport that was disputed.

Guess what's another sport that was disputed? Basketball.

Guess who won the gold? The Philippines. The record? 2-0.

Now, before we dispute the fact that football and basketball were roughly "not that far apart", or as @ryansongalia would say it, "there wasn't such an imbalance", we'd have to return to our three assumptions. First, that "There was a time that 'hoops fever' did not 'engulf the nation',"at this point, we don't know this. We don't know which sport "engulfed the nation". Like I said earlier, if there was something that engulfed the nation, it was cockfighting, or disdain for Federalistas. Does anyone know how things were in 1913? I'd like to know, too. The fact that football and basketball were in the first Far East Games, and that China participated, means there was interest on both sports from both countries.

Second, There was a time that the Philippines was "an Asian football powerhouse." The 1913 Far Eastern Games is the first tournament any national team of the Philippines at any sports competed at. It's the first. Therefore, if there's any "powerhouse team", wait, there are no powerhouse teams, because it was precisely the first competition! There can't be any "powerhouse" team in the very first game. In club football terms, this isn't even the first game of a season, it's the first game of the first season.

Interestingly, the Elo ratings listed two matches between the Philippines and China, but only the "second" match is recognized elsewhere: a 2-1 win for the Philippines. Whether there were two matches or just one, the Philippines won the gold by beating China. Here's the drift: both national teams were mostly composed of club teams. Now, I don't know if this some early example of China-hating-on-Pinoys, but RSSSF states that:

China were represented by club side South China A.A.
Philippines were represented by their champions Bohemian Club (Manila), consisting of Britons, Spanish and Americans (against the official rules of the competition)

In addition, Bohemians was the same club team by the great Alcantara when he stayed here. South China A.A. is the top club team in the Hong Kong Premiere League up to now. The names of the South China A.A./Hong Kong team look like Chinese names, but at that time, HK was already a British colony. Now I'm not implying that a Briton slipped in there, but it could be possible.

So in other words, there was no way for the 1913 Azkals to be an "Asian powerhouse" if this was their first match ever. So perhaps, they were "co-Asian powerhouses" with China, as they were the first Asian teams to play, but that doesn't reflect on quality of play, but the fact that they were first.

Get this, too: This was China's first match too. Perhaps the winner of the match did determine who was the Asian football powerhouse. But to say that the Philippines was an Asian football powerhouse before basketball before popular, and before the actual match? That's an own goal a la Escobar.

Let's review out assumptions:

1. There was a time that "hoops fever" did not "engulf the nation" 
• We cannot determine this. I'd enjoin everyone who knows to tell us.
2. There was a time that the Philippines was "an Asian football powerhouse."
• You can't determine an "Asian powerhouse" prior to a first game.
3. There was a concept of "an Asian football powerhouse" in the first place in 1913.
• See #2. It could possibly be right after the match was played.

This is totally my take on this, and I don't present these as fact on why there are basketball and football competitions in the 1913 Far Eastern Games: the Philippines was well known already to be crazy on basketball, and that the Chinese were crazy on football. The Chinese want to earn something when they went here, so the organizers put up a football tournament, and hoodwinked the Chinese on matchday.

Finally, let's review the final paragraph:

The Philippines' footballing ways started to diminish when America took over the country as their new colonial rulers. Little by little, football was ignored and overlooked by sponsors and the government itself. It was also throughout those years that basketball was introduced by the Americans, a sporting frenzy that survives until this very day.

The timeline on this paragraph was off. By 1913, American culture had already penetrated Philippine culture. Football as a relic of Spanish culture almost certainly didn't happen. Get this, Philippines won what could be a continental football championship. They've beaten the Chinese, whose sole purpose of visiting here (again, my theory) was to win the football gold. Then, "football was ignored and overlooked by sponsors and the government itself". It makes absolutely zero sense! Why would the government ignore a potential money maker? It defies logic! Or at least it defies the sole purpose of government in this country: to get all of our taxes. If this was football, this could've been Gretna F.C. already.

That means one thing: aside from conveniently ignoring the fact that the basketball beat the Chinese for the gold in the exact same multi-sport event, football didn't have any foothold from the get-go. For the government to miss its chance on capitalizing on football is dumbfounding

So, the statement that "Before hoops fever engulfed the nation, the Philippines was an Asian football powerhouse," is misleading at best and erroneous at worst. If anything, the Philippines was an Asian football powerhouse, but at that time, "hoops fever engulfed the nation". Finally, the Philippines almost certainly did not have football as its "primary sport" during the Spanish era, or at the very least, at the very end of the Spanish era.

Everything else, is fair game.