They're everywhere on Manila's major thoroughfares -- scantily clad girls on giant billboards. They are horrible traffic nuisances, assuming, of course, that you're a serious commuter just aiming for your destination.
The typical Filipino commuter, however, loves entertainment, even behind wheels. And what better way to have fun in the smoldering sun than to be treated with a daily parade of pretty young things on the road? Giant billboards showing shapely legs occupy so much space they distaort the landscape. But this country of about 80 million Catholics doesn't seem to mind.
That is unless the advert hits below the belt. On the capital's major highway -- that 21 years ago was the site of a people power revolution that toppled a dictatorship -- a local brandy company concocted a real grabber ad on it. The local brandy's billboard bore the follwing text: "Nakatikim ka na ba ng kinse anyos?" Translated: "Have you ever tasted a 15-year-old?"
The brandy producer maintains they meant that the brandy has been distilled for 15 years. But consumer and Catholic groups rose up in arms; the billboard had to be torn down.
Are Filipino girls overly sexualized? It's a cliché to blame the media for it, but who else is there to blame? The most viewed TV noontime shows are those packed by young girls in sexy shorts gyrating before Filipino audiences. One popular dance group is called "Sex Bomb," another is known "Viva Hot Babes," and still another is "G Girls," the G referring to "giling," a local lingo that means to gyrate.
On Christmas, when children visit their godparents' homes as is customary, they sing to the most popular sexy tunes and -- God help us -- sensually swing their hips in front of the old folks, who cheer them on to no end. The sight used to shock me, but my country has indeed come a long way from Jose Rizal's conception of Maria Clara, the conservative, demure Filipina who figured in the hero's novels.
Hundreds of years as a Spanish and American colony made us accommodating of outside influences. We love everything American, including the Americans' fair skin. The fastest-moving products in the groceries today are everything related to skin whitening: soap, lotion, and face moisturizer. Even a senator once endorsed a skin whitening soap in a TV commercial swearing to viewers that he uses it.
When you're fair, you're in. When you look tanned, ah, you must have spent time on the beach with a foreigner boyfriend, who usually prefers the "brown Filipinas." Movie stars get to show off their tan during the summer, but don't be misled. For most of the year, they rub sun block on their skin all day.
And with girls having access to almost everything on the Internet, how could anyone stop their exposure to the superficial and the whimsical?
Well, there's one that could possibly reduce the flesh flood, though. Bring down those billboards. It's good for the environment, and even better for one's safety on the road.
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