McDonald's pulls down ad after flak from Church leaders

Popular fast food chain McDonald’s has pulled down its recent television advertisement after it received flak from Catholic Church leaders for allegedly giving children “the wrong message" about courtship and relationships. In an official statement, Golden Arches Development Corp., the franchise operator of McDonald’s, said it stopped airing the commercial in all television stations as of Tuesday noon. “Over the years, we have strived to produce advertisements that highlight positive values like love for family and charity, which mirror those that the brand stands for," the statement said. The advertisement shows a young girl asking a young boy if she is his girlfriend, to which the boy answers, “Ayoko nga. Hindi pa ako ready. Demanding ang mga girlfriend. Gusto ganito, gusto ganyan (I don’t want to. I’m not ready. Girlfriends are demanding. They want this, they want that)." In a report on the Catholic news service ucanews.com, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez said the advertisement “[gives] the wrong message to children that it’s all right to enter into courtship, and it could pave the way for the very young to be lax and carefree." Father Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, said in an interview over Radio Veritas that the ad must be replaced because it plays with kids’ emotions and cheapens relationships. Golden Arches Development Corp said the CBCP, through Iñiguez, has expressed its gratitude and appreciation to McDonald’s Philippines for the immediate action. “McDonald’s remains committed to promoting positive values and will continue raising the bar to be better at what we do — whether it is our food, our service to even how we communicate to the public," the statement said. – KBK/HS, GMA News