This study explores the nature of Chabacano (Philippine creole Spanish) within the Philippine linguistic profile. After describing the current status of Chabacano and Spanish in the Philippines, attention is turned toward historical documentation, and the considerable ambiguity surrounding the status of earlier attestations as examples of Spanish as spoken by Filipinos, a Spanish-based servants’ pidgin, or a true creole language. Focusing on Zamboangueño, it is proposed that this Chabacano variety and possibly the Manila Bay (Cavite and Ternate) varieties as well arose gradually, as the common denominator of several Philippine languages brought together in military garrisons and trade settings. These Philippine languages had already absorbed such a high proportion of Spanish lexical items that the resulting creole language could be readily understood by speakers of a broad crosssection of Philippine languages. Chabacano later received additional accretions from Spanish as the creole dialects became stabilized in urban environments and, in Zamboanga, increasingly absorbed lexical and structural elements from neighboring Visayan languages. Thus the relationship between Chabacano and its substrate languages is somewhat different than in prototypical creolization scenarios.