Funtastic Philippines

The new tourism tagline “It’s more fun in the Philippines” is a hit. Many believed it would not fly, but it did. The proof is in the tagline’s staying power in the most fickle and ephemeral of media — the social networks.

I should know. I participated in its going viral. How can I (or the millions of Filipinos on Facebook and Twitter) resist such a catchy tagline? The beauty of it is that one can use the tagline to highlight anything and everything there is to do or go to in the Philippines.

With this article are several contributions of mine, to what has been circulating on the Net for the past several weeks. The exercise of crowdsourcing ideas for posters and images are made all the more facile by several websites with easily downloadable and usable meme makers.

I use the one from the site http://www.morefunmaker.com/. You just have to plug in your image and your catch phrase …and voila you’ve got your own Philippine tourism poster. You can then post it on your page or where whatever portal you have access to.

The original site of the DOT uses the pictures of professional photographers like George Tapan…wonderful shots of top tourism destinations, but this has not stopped anyone from using their own images to boost visitorship.

DOT Secretary Mon Jimenez was right in banking on Internet-savvy Pinoys to spread the word around that it was more fun in the Philippines. I had originally started contributing to the Facebook site “Come visit my Philippines.” It is a great site and continues its strong friendship and viewership with hundreds of thousands all over the globe.

The site (initiated by the ever-ebullient Bessie Badilla) has been one of most successful in using the Internet as a portal for the world to get an attractive glimpse of our 7,107 islands (“7,107” by the way was my suggestion for a tourism tagline). It is also a great way to find out new and interesting spots to visit to boost domestic tourism, since most of the images and captions are current, and unsolicited or not, driven by advertising.

I started out with regular images of tourist spots in the country but then hit on another idea. I used my archival photos with the current tagline and it still works! My favorite is an old image of the Manila International Airport with two ladies in ternos and pamaypays; the tagline: Fashion: More fan in the Philippines! This a testament to the tagline’s effectiveness. We can generate interest in the country’s heritage assets as well as with traditions and festivals that define us as Pinoys.

You’d think the circus at the Senate has taken the focus off the campaign but actually it has not. Even the proceedings have not escaped the fun meme-makers. This also makes you realize that fun is embedded in everything we do or are. Pinoy humor is not only a pervasive social equalizer, coping mechanism, or trauma mitigator but also the frame within which we live our lives day in and day out.

Fun is as much part of us as adobo and karaoke, fiestas and fun runs (now a Filipino pastime), or jeepneys and chicaharon. One wonders (in a world of wonders) why we did not think about fun as a come-on in the first place. Maybe we were just having too much of it?

* * *

Feedback is welcome. Please email the writer at Paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com. Facebook – Paulo Alcazaren, twitter @pinoyurbanist.