Ms Rihanna, I Apologize for the Inconvenience

Dear Ms. Rihanna,

Hi. How's life under your umbrella? It has come to my very disgusted attention that there is this wickedly TAGALIZED version of your hit song, Umbrella, being circulated in our third world airwaves.

Of course, you might be thinking, why are them Filipinos translating my smash hit into teh-gay-lowg? Ma'am, and this is just me thinking, we probably ran out of songs to revive. That's maybe how its like when you're living in some poor country. We're in the third world, and we're probably mostly malnourished enough to disable real creative songwriting.

It's a growing threat to the increasingly imaginary concept that is OPM. Original Pinoy Music. It's something of a term they popularized in, I think, the 70's mostly because it never carried over to the year 2000. It's probably resting in pieces anyway. Some of our better songwriters haven't been very particular with their output, and that's a bad thing because we don't seem to be running out of singing contests that are spawning champions that sound alike. That's the problem. Too much wannabe singers, too little material.

The proposed solution is to resort to bastardizing classics with very, very charmless versions. See, before this tagalized embarrassment happened, we were reduced to singing other people's songs, adding a few rifts and unnecessary power belting here and there to call them our own. Yes ma'am, I know, its all so very fucking retarded.

No, I don't know how to answer that other question though. I really don't get it. We have battalions of call center agents with practiced fake accents to match. Most civilized countries repair to us for cheap labor because our English sounds better than the heavily curried English they have in Bangalore. Our comprehension of your language is faintly acceptable, so you'll think we don't need help in understanding what your songs translate to.

Then again, we probably DO, because we have retarded countrymen that took the time to TAGALIZE (do a tagalog translation) and then RECORD their irritatingly cheap versions for everybody's annoyance. I reckon they're doing it to irritate rather than to gain profit, because, honestly, nobody in their right minds will believe that such trash will sell. BTW, your tagalized song is entitled "Payong." That's tagalog for, well, for umbrella. You'd think they can try to spin it around a bit, but noo.

And this is what I'm writing you about.

P.S. If you have time, please let Flo-rida know that you guys are in the same boat. We also tagalized LOW.

And here are your lyrics

Bihag mo ang puso ko, hinding hindi na magkakalayo
Kahit sikat ka pa, ay ikaw lamang sinta
Kahit dumilim pa man, ang kotse di'y kumikinang
andito lang ako, maglilingkod sayo....

Kasi...tayo'y parang araw, sisikat
Pangako ko sayo'y di ka iiwan,
ikaw lamang ang aking kaibigan
Sumumpa pagkaibiga'y d mawawala
Ang unos ma'y biglag bumuhos
Di ka na mauulanan

Di ka na mauulanan……
Di na, di na
Hinde… hinde… hinde….
Di ka na mauulanan
Di na, di na
Hinde… hinde… hinde….

Mga karangyaan, ay hindi hadlang
Ikaw ay ako , sinusumpa sayo
matapos man ang gulo sumabog man ang mundo
basag man ang kamao, hihilong din ito

Kasi...tayo'y parang araw, sisikat
Pangako ko sayo'y di ka iiwan,
ikaw lamang ang aking kaibigan
Sumumpa pagkaibiga'y d mawawala
Ang unos ma'y biglag bumuhos
Tandaan mong ako'y nandito lang
Di ka na mauulanan

Di ka na mauulanan……
Di na, di na
Hinde… hinde… hinde….
Di ka na mauulanan
Di na, di na
Hinde… hinde… hinde….

[bridge]
Damhin mo ang yakap ko
hindi na kailangan tumakbo (pumarito ka)
'Lang hahadlang sa ating dal'wa
Hayaang ulan ay bumagsak
Ako lang ang kailangan mo Kasi....