Type O: Type O Negative or just a typo?

Yes, Type O, as in the propaganda campaign of Tommy Osmeña, former mayor, incumbent South District Congressman, and bitter rival of sitting Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama.  In my opinion, as a student and practitioner of communications, particularly political communications, this teaser doesn’t really do much than just that—tease. The Rama camp may be worried about the presence of “Type O” streamers, tarpaulins, stickers throughout the metropolis, but I don’t think it matters much. Tommy O is known enough, for better or for worse, that he needs no teasers; it’s not as if he’s been on a hiatus from politics for awhile and is staging a comeback (after all, he’s a sitting congressman).

This teaser campaign, to me, is nothing more than a waste of money, a way to make the city look dirty in advance (darn it, it’s not even campaign season yet), and succeeds only in taunting the incumbent and his team. Okay, fine, it does create the impression of strength, a show of force. But there is something inherently wrong with the message.

Why Type O? You don’t literally type “O” in your ballot—if you want to vote for him, you shade the box or the circle beside the surname Osmeña—so it’s not a creative instructional pun. Typo O is a reference to the blood type (it is, right?), which can either be positive or negative. And being a pun, prospective candidate Osmeña can be susceptible to, like the gift that keeps on giving, the ‘pun that keeps on punning.’ That is, this particular Type O—people can joke—is surely a Type O Negative, owing to the not-so-pleasant image the former mayor maintains (he is quite the nitpicker, isn’t he?).

Type O, phonetically, can be heard by the listener as “typo,” which is, however way one looks at it, a misprint, an error, a mistake. Negative still. Suffice it to say, I really don’t get the whole point of mounting a teaser campaign that doesn’t make much sense except for “O” being Osmeña’s initial.

I’ve done an informal survey (not at all scientific) of friends and colleagues (in media and the bloggers), and I noticed that Rama’s strength is in the middle to upper classes. Osmeña may be strong with the lower classes (from what I heard, the “Osmeña gihapon” slogan is still pretty popular among the barangay folk). So let’s see how each camp makes the most of their bailiwicks whilst reaching out and strengthening their weaknesses.

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Sotto, the plagiarist, says we’re not overpopulated. To be fair, his sins notwithstanding, I am inclined to agree. There is a semblance of being overpopulated in the metros (Manila, Cebu, Davao, CDO, Baguio), but we are not overpopulated to the extent that our population has become a disadvantage. ‘Demographics’ has become the Grim Reaper for many countries; in other words, a small population brought about by decades of population control has resulted in failing economies.

The Philippines, on the other hand, one of the few countries with a big population (distinguish big from overpopulated) but with a relatively high per capita income has weathered the global economic storm of 2007-2008 largely because of its population size. This, vis-a-vis America and Europe which bore the brunt of the meltdown – and blame it on their ageing populations and low birth rates!

Suffice to say, there is no direct link between poverty and high population. That is what the first world would like the third world to believe, while their social experiments and population policies clearly point to the opposite (certainly there are other contributory factors; but to say that ‘overpopulation equals poverty is an absolute’ is false, such claim is inconsistent with data). This, as the first world scrambles to resuscitate their economies by encouraging couples to bring more babies to the world; alas, it’s too late, the contraceptive culture has damaged the psyche of their respective societies, and couples no longer want babies (they’re too busy, too empowered to be doing that), no matter the incentives promised.

Maximizing the Philippine population through education (based on global trends, job requirements) and skills training (again, based on the demands of the world market) will make sure that the Philippines makes full use of its population size, with our people ready and able to fill the void left by ageing and underpopulated countries, embracing a brighter future in this increasingly globalized world.

We cannot miss this opportunity of a lifetime, the chance to be the source of the world’s thinkers, the world’s workforce. The future of this capitalist earth rests on the shoulders of young populations such as ours. For without us, the world as we know it, this capitalistic, materialistic, technology-reliant world, will definitely change. It will collapse.

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