LRT 1 & 2 with Berso sa Metro from Instituto Cervantes Manila
Manila Commuter on Oct 16 2009 at 12:01 am | Filed under: LRT
Since I am presently studying how to write and speak Spanish at the Instituto Cervantes Manila, my eyes are usually drawn to the Berso sa Metro on the LRT trains’ upper walls where they are prominently displayed, reading them silently to find out if I have progressed enough to understand the Spanish poems without resorting to reading the Filipino translations.
Here’s the quotation from the play of celebrated Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681) La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), which was translated into Filipino for the Berso sa Metro campaign.
La vida es sueño
¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
Ano nga ba ang buhay? Isang kahibangan;
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
Ano nga ba ang buhay? Isang ilusyon;
una sombra, una ficción,
Isang anino, isang kasinungalingan,
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
At ang malalaking biyaya’y maliliit pa rin,
que toda la vida es sueño,
Dahil ang buhay ay isa lamang pangarap
y los sueños, sueños son.
At ang mga pangarap ay pangarap lamang.
And, even though I only started studying Spanish recently (finishing two out of the ten to fifteen Spanish levels that I am planning to take), I discover with great pleasure that I can understand enough to get the gist of what the Berso sa Metro poems are saying. 
The promotional reading campaign of the Berso sa Metro project is spearheaded by Instituto Cervantes in collaboration with the Light Rail Transit Authority, the Metrostar Express, the National Historic Institute and the Committee for the Filipino-Spanish Friendship Day.
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