Manila Philippines – Coca-Cola’s “America The Beautiful” commercial which made its debut at last Sunday’s Super Bowl may have ignited thousands of racist and bigoted tweets and comments on social media, but that hasn’t stopped the jingle – sung in different languages – from climbing the music charts worldwide.
From China to Mexico to Israel, the Coke jingle zoomed to the number one song and music video, as it did in the Philippines. It didn’t matter that the jingle has all but one Tagalog line in the commercial’s final cut. Filipino American Leilani recorded the entire first verse of the 1913 Katharine Lee Bates lyrics in Tagalog, but only the line “sa ibabaw ng mga frutas” (above the fruited plain) was included in the commercial.
Music lovers from all over the world were obviously delighted to see their native language featured in a television spot that was viewed by hundreds of millions of people.
What a difference one line makes.
As for the bigoted social media tweets and posts? The commenters can eat their hearts out, followed by a sip or two of Coke.
Sarangani, Philippines – Manny Pacquiao: world champion boxer, Philippine Congressman, Karaoke King, millionaire. He’s got it all, you’d think. But what lies ahead in his future?
The Adobo Chronicles 
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