The first time I heard about our slogan "It's More Fun in the Philippines," I thought it was not creative and imaginative at all, does not reflect the cultures of our country, and does not reflect our vision as a nation. In entrepreneurship, slogans, mottos, and logos of businesses must reflect who they are, their promises to their clients, and what they envision their company to be in the future. This must also be applied in our country.
But then, I had no choice but to accept that slogan since it was already passed and approved (I guess) by some authorities.
Their first ads were ok, like the "commuting" where they show how we travel from coast to coast using boats, or the "humps" showing our Chocolate Hills in Bohol, or the "island hopping" showing our Hundred Islands. These ads were not excellent for me though, just fair.
But along the way negative ads using this slogan were being spread out. Like the "commuting" where we show how our jeepneys are full and there are even people sitting on the roof, or the "swimming" where Filipinos are swimming in the flood, or "parking" where we showcase our traffic in our roads. Obviously, this slogan does not promote our country very well.
The slogan also is not true most of the time. Yes, in times of troubles we, Filipinos, tend to smile, go to the malls, sing in videokes, and just smile. But it is mostly not fun in the Philippines. The traffic, corruption, injustices, crimes, terrorism, flooding, and the list goes on. The slogan does not even reflect our plans and visions for the future, because obviously we are not doing something aggressive and major to solve our traffic, corruption, injustices, crimes, terrorisms, flooding, and others. Our slogan does not really reflect Philippines - its current status and its future goals.
The slogan also uses the word "more", which is a comparative word. This means that we are comparing our country to the other countries, that the Philippines is "more" fun than the other countries in the world, which is I think not true because of the fact that lots of Filipinos prefer to live to other countries, even risking their lives being caught as TNT's. Comparative words such as "more" is a very poor word to be used in our slogan. A slogan must showcase us as Philippines rather than how better we are to other nations.
Now, I'm seeing ads in EDSA saying "hanging out: more fun in the Philippines" showing women doing antigravity yoga. This ad does not even show who we are as Filipinos, does not reflect our cultures and traditions, and is not reflective of our country. This ad showed me that our slogan is not a long-term slogan. In time, we will run out of ads like this "hanging out" ad I saw in EDSA. I believe slogans must be long-term and must last a long time.
Not to mention that we just copied the slogan to Switzerland's "It's More Fun in Switzerland." When that news came out, it was a shame for me as a Filipino.
It will be hard to promote my own country if I don't agree and am not proud of our own slogan.
"Mabuhay Philippines" is still the best slogan for me. I think we should have stayed with that slogan since the word "mabuhay" is a popular term for the Philippines, like the aloha in Hawaii. "Mabuhay" is also a word that is very deep in the Filipino language and is very hard to directly translate to English or any other language, which shows its ingenuity and uniqueness and how deep our cultures and traditions are. Mabuhay 3 <hi you sent a lot of ideas, and I like your persistence}
Paolo S. Bellosillo
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