N.B. – This was published in Asian Correspondent (September 8, 2:19 p.m.) where I write a column (Philippine Fantasy).

As promised last week, here are more “funny signs” from Cagayan de Oro City, popularly known as the City of Golden Friendship.

This two-way traffic sign is globally accepted. By the way, it doesn’t mean that traffic moves upward and downward.

I guess this would explain why some two-way traffic signs use two horizontal directional lines (or just a single line with two arrows). Then again, such signs are only useful from your vantage point if you are crossing a two-way street.

If you don’t speak Filipino, you won’t find our next sign funny. Some Filipinos, during informal conversations, say dehins (instead of hindi which means “no”) and olats (instead of talo which means “lose”). Did you know that huwad means “fake” in English?

Well, if it has been in business since 1936, I guess we are assured of the quality of whatever it’s selling, regardless of the store’s name.

And if you’re not familiar with Filipino surnames, you may think that our next sign is a misspelling.

Yes, Daylit is assumed to be the surname of the business owner.  The sign does not claim that the salon is open during daylight. UPDATE (April 24, 2014): It turns out that Daylit is the nickname of the owner, according to a comment below.

If you’re not familiar with abbreviated Filipino phrases, you’ll definitely wonder what this abbreviation means (which for me is misplaced as the sign is better off expressed in English).

The abbreviation atbp. stands for at iba pa (and others). Given that the business name and the major services provided are in English, the abbreviation “etc.” should have been used.

For our next sign, the error is not that easy to detect.

Let’s take a closer look.

Yes, the word “tense” should have been used instead.

For our next sign, the word is correct although they should have been joined together.

And if you don’t know where I took our last sign, you would think that there is something ungrammatical about it.

Where did I take this picture? At MUST, believe it or not! MUST stands for Mindanao University of Science and Technology, the venue for a writing workshop I conducted in Cagayan de Oro City.

The sign only stresses the obvious: Let’s keep the campus clean and green. Of course, the university’s acronym should have been written as M.U.S.T. to make the message clearer (especially to outsiders like me).

That’s it for now. More funny signs next week. Thank you for reading!