Cheap gimmick this G-U-I-M-A-R-A-S

 GUIMARAS, an island province off eastern Panay Island may not be rich but it’s not broke either.

It’s baffling though how the province that rightly boasts of its mangoes, cashew and countless resorts readily groveled down to the cheap enticement of a business corporation, one that produces alcoholic beverages, to erect on one of its promontories a structure ala Hollywood bearing the letters that spells the island’s name.

First off: it’s good but not necessary, even if the “G-U-I-M-A-R-A-S” is facing the Iloilo Straight where inter-island and ocean faring vessels navigate or berth. 

On board those ships are travelers to begin with: this means they already know or, if they didn’t, they are surrounded be opportunities like fellow crew or passengers, to identify the island.

Wonder if Gov, Rahman Nava really celebrated at the installation of a giant visual which de facto turned his  island into a cheap victim of Lucio Tan’s advertisement gimmick.

That harkens us back several years ago when Lucio Tan’s marketeers pulled one Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog by the nose in so-called beautifying some streets of Yrong-Yrong where, as consequence, concrete posts sprouted bearing the names of the roads with LT’s logo at the tip.

That may help promote tourism in the City of Love but it also triggered snickers from some locals amused by their feat of ridiculing themselves. 

Those street posts with “T” were gone in less than a year.