Doing Something About Those Ugly Billboards

Have you ever looked up while driving through the city streets or out to the countryside and really paid attention to what you were seeing? Have you noticed these huge billboards that purportedly give you directions or show you the way to some local landmark? Or, are you now so inured to their ugly presence that your eyes simply pass over them?

Well, yesterday, some friends and I - members of Friends of the Banica River and the Environment - went over to the Provincial Board and presented our appeal that something be done about these ugly, ugly things that are sending all the wrong messages to our youth.

For example, what do you make of this "Accident Prone Area" billboard?

Drinking AND Driving are "Kool"? On what planet?

And what about this?

Do they serve that at the school, too? Are we trying to condition our children to see liquor as common place and a necessary part of their lives? I thought this was supposed to be a "Child-Friendly Nation/Region/Province/City/Municipality/Barangay"? What are we teaching the children?

Other than the misleading and dangerous messages, we believe that billboards by themselves mar the view and contribute a great deal to visual pollution. When we travel down that road, we want to see the trees, the hills, the view. We don't want to be assaulted with advertisements for alcohol, cigarettes, lending institutions, animal feeds, some restaurant, hair/car/motorcycle products, etc.

True, it seems trivial compared to the economy, the political situation, the cost of gasoline, dengue and malaria. On second look, however, it is definitely important to reclaim our streets and highways from crass commercialism, to preserve what we can of the beauty of the countryside, and to make sure we do not send the wrong messages to our children.

And so, like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde 2 and the bad haircut she got at an uppity salon because she didn't get involved, didn't speak up, we're speaking up against these billboards. If we don't, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.