What Does the Tourism Dept, MTV, Happy Slip, & Let’s Go Sago! Have in Common?

Sec. Ace Durano % Happy Slip
DoT Sec. Ace Durano and Happy Slip

Promotion of Philippine tourism, that is.

For the year of 2009, the Department of Tourism (DoT) as headed by Sec. Joseph “Ace” Durano, intends to attract the younger generation worldwide to come and visit the Philippines.


Case in point is digital celebrity Christine Gambito, famously known in the internet as ‘Happy Slip.’ Being a Filipina raised in the US, Happy Slip first stepped on Philippine soil only a few years ago. The experience was an opener for her upon discovering the many natural wonders of the Philippines, aside from the people’s warm hospitality. In fact, she did a series of videos available on the internet about the places she visited in the Philippines. Currently, she takes on the tourism ambassadress hat filming commercials around the country for a Philippine campaign with Music Television (MTV).

Sec. Joseph Ace Durano holding Sago
Sec. Joseph "Ace" Durano holding Sago

With these objectives in mind, there’s no other way to reach them as one but through a similarly unifying component of human society – music.

As much diverse as the culture and language of different countries, all of them hums in rhythm and jives in beat. Hence, the Department of Tourism, in cooperation with MTV, will launch a series of campaign aired through MTV commercials worldwide to promote various Philippine tourism spots.

Happy Slip with Sago
Happy Slip with Sago

Locally, there would also be a series of smaller events around the country which would start come February until it culminates on November with Rockapelago. Rockapelago is touted to be the country’s biggest concert in local history. It shall be graced by renowned international artists with Filipino heritage.

Rockepelago Team
(L-R) Ms.Yvonne Tey (MTV Asia), DoT Usec. Eduardo Jarque, Jr., Christine "Happy Slip" Gambito, DoT Sec. Joseph "Ace" Durano, Media Contacts COO & Managing Dir. Mr. Ed Mapa, Jr.

At the same time, the campaign intends to entice fellow Filipinos who grew up in foreign lands but has never stepped on Philippine soil. Perhaps the coming year would be a good time to break that status quo and visit their roots, just like Happy Slip. The event was also graced by Tourism Undersecretary Eduardo Jarque Jr., Media Contacts COO & Managing Director Mr. Ed Mapa, and MTV Asia’s Yvonne Tey and Raksha Nanikram.

**Photo credits to Mr. Laszlo Lim of Yehey! for Happy Slip’s first photo & Musicrator.com for Sec.Durano’s photo with Sago as labeled; Name source from Carl Valenzona.

13 thoughts on “What Does the Tourism Dept, MTV, Happy Slip, & Let’s Go Sago! Have in Common?

  1. Good Day Sec.

    Look what your group have done to Mt. Apo??

    Sangkatutak ng basura ang iniwan..”human waste”…

    kahit secretary ka ng tourism..isa kang maling halimbawa sa lahat.

    …”Nagiwan kau ng basura sa Goody Goody at Tarpaulin sa boulders”…

  2. @mountaineer – hi mountaineer, can you be more specific with the date, time and area? So we can raise the incident to Sec. Durano. Perhaps, it was left unintentionally or it was the staff’s misdoing. cheers bro!

  3. @Vince – I’m not sure with regards to infrastructure, but I think this activity in particular is more of a marketing effort, if I;’m not mistaken.

    But thanks for the valid question, I’ll try to ask this from Sec. Ace himself, hoping he’ll be present in the DOT launching activity later.

  4. @Vince – hi. got to talk to Sec., In summary the answer is yes. I’m publishing that audio interview sometime May because the April blogpost schedule is full. 🙂

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