Jul 22, 2007

Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, rhyming slogans ang kailangan

This blog's favorite anti-hero is the bureaucrat with the bright idea. Somewhere deep in the recesses of our decaying bureaucracy, fossilized government employees or officers are cooking up wonderful designs and slogans of such caliber as "Sorry for the inconvenient. Your taxes is working for you."

We see this malady not just in bad government posters, vomit-inducing PIA video ads, and what I can only call "high school sloganeering".

As far as the range of my memory can recall (I grew up during Martial Law), Marcos is to blame for this rhyming sickness. Every Martial Law kid still remembers, "Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan."

From then on, I think all slogans had to be "clever," metered and in rhyme -- all three, preferred.

Exhibit A is a slogan circa 1990s on drug abuse. "Don't use drugs. They'll use you, confuse you and abuse you." (This is what I can recall of the slogan for now. Please correct my fading memory!)

Exhibit B. Senator-now-Mayor-again Alfredo Lim made this motto famous. "The law applies to everyone or no one at all." Pretty catchy, but well, on further investigation, it actually is just stating status quo in our country, favoring the second half of the assertion. He could have at least been more cogent with, "I will shoot everyone and ask questions later." -- just kidding, of course.

Exhibit C. For about 2-3 years, MRT played this message as the train stopped on each station. "Thank you for *patronizing* the MetroStar express." They've since changed this message, thank you. Actually, instead of playing this annoying message, it may have been more contingent to simply announce the current stop and the next stop -- twice. But no, our bright government bureaucrat would rather thank people for patronizing the otherwise unbearable ride.

Exhibit D. Pasig City's slogan is the rather emptyheaded "Sige Pasig, Sige Pa!". Sige pa what? More unnecessary bridges across J. Vargas Avenue? More snatchers in broad daylight at Ortigas?

To be fair, we did have our bright moments. I can still remember the "Read to Lead" campaign, which actually pushed me to be a more voracious reader than I already was. And there was this short-lived metric conversion song to start us a-using the metric system.

Things have gone downhill since then.

8 comments:

MarcyTri said...

Benc, I must thank that jingle creator of the English to metric song. I'm still actually using that now to convert :) Funny, I never found that song irritating. Maybe because we were still 1st year in Kalayaan Daw, este Dorm.

Unknown said...

Marcy! Can you post naman dito yung song na yun? I can't go past "... the feet multiplied by point 3-oh-5" (tama ba?)

MarcyTri said...

Uh hurm... (clearing my throat yan!)

I'll go straight to the conversion nalang... I seem to have forgotten the intro and the ending :D

Just multiply inches by two point five four (2.54), and then you'll get centimeters.

The feet multiplied by point three oh five (0.305), will give you equivalent meters.

The gallons times three point seventy-nine (3.79) will give you equivalent liters. (not sure about the words but the conversion is correct)

Subtract thirty two (32) from degrees Fahrenheit, the result, keep it in mind...

Background vocals: "WHY?"

For you will multiply that by five over nine (5/9) and you'll get Celsius just fine.

I forgot the ending na... nothing comes to mind :(

That's all! :D

MarcyTri said...

Hey, I remembered the gallons to liters... mali nga yan. It goes like this...

The gallons times three point seventy-nine (3.79) will turn into liters for you!

In the "for you" part, the girl's voice goes high up, di ko maabot! :)

Unknown said...

salamat marcy!

may mga naaalala akong pieces of the lyrics na hindi mo na-cover. and some corrections:

Just multiply inches by two point five four (2.54), and YOU WILL get centimeters.

The feet multiplied by point three oh five (0.305), will give THE equivalent meters.

The gallon times three point seventy-nine (3.79) will turn into liters, THAT'S TRUE!

Meron pang multiply pounds by .45 (yata?).

The ending goes something like: "The yard and the mile are things of the past..." :)

elacar said...

hey! is here actually a link to an mp3 of this? ive been dying to teach it to my daughter so she can keep the conversions in her head. but it doesnt work without the song and i dont remember the tune....

MarcyTri said...

you want me to sing it for you? :)

a junilge that's more than 20 years old... hmm...

Anonymous said...

Yes, please...PLEASE!!
Someone please be brave enough to sing the song and post a video (or even just audio) of it.

I've been searching the web ALL OVER and there are no audio/video postings of it.

At least there are lyrics, but those of us who don't know the whole song would appreciate listening/learning it :)