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El Madrid de las Filipinas- How the Madrid Metro puts the Philippines to Shame

I know I keep praising the Madrid Metro system which results in empahasizing more and more that I live in a third world (ok fine, developing is a more acceptable term now) nation which has a horrible public transpo system. But hey, If you are one of the millions who drive to work everyday in the rush hour traffic or one of the people who has to squeeze into the MRT, you would be just as deliriously happy as I am to have the Madrid Metro. Not to mention the soaring gas prices which I don’t really want to get into. I normally hate it when people diss Manila or the Philippines in general and I get defensive. I always think that only Filipinos can criticize our own country haha. However, the public transpo chaos is one thing I can’t deny.

So anyway, I’m bringing this up because of a commercial I saw when I was waiting in one of the stations for the train to arrive. It’s an ad about the Madrid Metro which involves the Philippines. The ad is called “El Madrid de Filipinas” It’s in connection to the existence of a Madrid City both in Spain and in the Philippines.Here’s the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7BW83ni2o

When I first saw it, my mouth was literally left hanging open out of disbelief and disgust. I always hate it when the Philippines is portrayed as some backward uncivilized nation where cars, buildings and indoor plumbing does not exist. So as you can imagine, I was not too happy about this portrayal of “Madrid” city somewhere in the south. God knows there must be dozens of Madrids, Valencias and other places named after Spanish cities all over the country.

I was just about to run amuck when I had an epiphany. What was I so mad about? Chances are, there is a backward town that looks close to what is in the ad. Even worse, that town probably does NOT have the measly 2 Metro stations portrayed in the Ad. The truth is, It’s actually much worse!

Ugh, dirt roads and lack of decent infrastructure is indeed still a huge issue in most provinces. I doubt if such a project can be completed as swiftly and accurately in the real Philippines. I now have mixed feelings about the ad. It may be offensive that our country is portrayed in such a manner where we all still use carabaos as daily transpo, but on the flipside, I wish we were as progress-oriented as these people who were inspired by what they saw in Madrid,Spain and wasted no time and worked together towards improving their own Madrid. 🙂

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