VIRAL: Students explain new income tax law with remake of Dua Lipa’s ‘New Rules’ music video

Screenshot from Debra Ann M. Ponce Facebook video.
Screenshot from Debra Ann M. Ponce Facebook video.

They say music helps students retain more information when studying, but this group of college students has taken that tip to the next level, recreating Dua Lipa’s New Rules music video to explain the Philippines’ new Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law.

And the video, posted to Facebook on Tuesday, its not just any kind of parody, it’s an almost shot-for-shot remake.




According to Debra Ponce, the BS Accountancy student from Ateneo de Zamboanga University who uploaded the video, they produced it for a final class requirement.

“At first, we were made to choose between making a short movie and a music video. We preferred the music video because we thought people would like and remember it better since Filipinos are generally fond of music,” she told Coconuts Manila.

And she’s right. As of posting time, the video had more than 400,000 views, 18,000 reactions, and more than 8,000 shares.

She said it was her classmate, Alexandra Wee, who came up with the idea.

“Alexandra Wee, the one who played the role of Dua, just thought that the idea of welcoming a new TRAIN Law is really all about familiarizing ourselves with ‘new rules.’ The group immediately resonated with this and thought that it was a good match since the song gets to reflect the things that are happening in our own national context.”

The group rewrote the song’s lyrics to explain some of the most important tax reforms.

While the TRAIN law was enacted in December, many still don’t know how it will affect their everyday expenses. The new income tax policy lowered the percentage of tax deducted from people’s income but increased taxes on cars, coal, and sugar-sweetened drinks.

But apart from changing the lyrics, the music video looks impressively similar to the original. Like Lipa’s the students’ version was shot in a hotel and they obviously got the choreography down pat. Ponce said it took them about four days to complete the project, three days to write the song, and an entire day to film.

“Our collective goal was really to make our video as accurate as possible in reference to the original New Rules music video. Jehan Baraña took care of the choreography based on the original music video,” she said. “We began filming at 9pm and we ended at 12 noon the next day.”

But Ponce also said that it wasn’t just the aesthetic they focused on, but also made sure that the video was informative, funny, and relatable.

“We wanted other students to remember the law in simpler terms but we also wanted to make them feel that we all go through similar experiences when studying something as complex as tax,” she said

She said that, at least for her, the project was effective in helping her understand the reforms.

“Without the subject and the requirement, perhaps we would not really be able to put extra effort in researching about [the TRAIN law] and understanding it. Since we were obliged to inform others about the law, we were extra careful in crafting some information placed in the lyrics which also helped us for our personal understanding,” she said.

The students are set to graduate by next year and plan to work for the government, a private company, or take up law after getting their CPA license, but it looks like they could all have a future in music video production, too.



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