Who would have thought that the simple commercial jingle featuring septuagenarian Susan Roces could still penetrate the millennial content makers-dominated platform like YouTube?
The simple yet catchy song to the commercial of RiteMed has definitely captured the Philippine audience after it reached 1-million views this week. Additionally, it has also reached people from other countries and spawned parodies and awesome covers.
“My grandchild, who’s 1 year and two months, would literally stop anything he’s doing whenever he hears your commercial on TV,” a showbiz reporter told Roces when the latter renewed her contract with the pharmaceutical company.
Delighted by what she heard, the 76-year-old actress replied that it’s been her dream to be a singer and thanked RiteMed commercial for making her realize that dream. As everyone in the room burst into laughter, Roces continued with a little story about a small kid who came up to her while taping for FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano.
“The kid called on my attention. He shouted ‘Lola Flora! Lola Flora!’ Akala ko kung anong sasabihin niya. Hinatak niya ako para madinig ko siya. Then he started singing ‘Kung kailangan ng gamot, ‘wag mahihiyang magtanong,” she shared singing the intro of the popular jingle and referring to her character in the primetime show.
This prodded another reporter to ask how she feels that after long years, she now has a hit song. The Queen of Philippine movies replied, “Yan din nga ang pumasok sa isip ko. Hindi pa huli ang lahat. Kung kailan pa ako naging senior citizen, at tsaka ako biniyayaan ng isang magandang pagkakataon para umawit ng live. Hindi po recorded ‘yun. Habang tine-take, ‘yun ay live.”
Referring to the viral ad, an executive from RiteMed said that the TVC was actually an advocacy campaign.
“When the brand was relaunched in 2011, the dominant theme in the pharmaceutical industry was “bawal magkasakit,” the executive said adding that they wanted to change that mindset.
On her part, Roces said that her being with the pharmaceutical company as its celebrity endorser is also an advocacy, too. It’s a mission inspired by her father, Jesus Sonor, who was a doctor.
“I have witnessed many events during the course of my father’s career as a doctor,” Roces relayed.
She also told a story about her father being assigned to work in the mines in the mountain province where she witnessed for herself an emergency operation her father had to do because of a gunshot wound, which one of the guards in the mines inflicted upon himself accidentally.
“I first experienced the agony not only of the patient but of the family. In the succeeding events, my father operated a small clinic. He didn’t have much money to have a big clinic, he could not afford the rent,” she narrated.
However, all his father’s patients were in dire need of money, too. That’s why his father had to accept fruit, chicken or whatever the patients had as payment for the medical service.
“When I was offered to do this commercial, it touched my heart. My father has long been gone when this commercial has been offered to me. So I said to myself, ‘Is that you, Dad?’ You send these people for me to continue my mission to help the needy, to keep healthy, to get well, to get out of their medical needs?” she said.