Brand CdeO

A FEW years ago, when I was detailed at the City Tourism Office, I was assigned to meet a group from Manila who came here on a study tour.

Upon their arrival, two of the visitors requested me to arrange a trip to the CDO carne norte factory. I was momentarily stunned by their request. I then informed them that there is no such factory in the city. It was their turn to be surprised. They told me that since Cagayan de Oro is also known as CDO, they assumed that this is the place where the CDO meat products are made!

This erroneous perception bothered me for a while because I then realized that Cagayan de Oro did not possess its own brand initials that can serve as its distinct identity. Our city's name is composed of 12 letters and this could be one of the reasons why many simply use CDO to refer to our city.

But are we conscious of the fact that CDO refers to the official brand name of a nationally known food company? That the initials CDO do not legally belong to Cagayan de Oro at all?

I made a research on the sanmarino.com.ph/news where there is a brief article by Dindo A. Danao about Corazon Dayro-Ong, nutritionist and a housewife from Valenzuela, Bulacan. She was known to make very good and tasty longanisas and experimented with the skinless variety. She started to sell them at a small scale, and it did not take long for it to become popular.

In 1981, her thriving business was registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission as Foodsphere Inc.

However, Corazon Dayro-Ong's initials, CDO is used as the flagship brand of the company's food products - like the CDO carne norte, longanisa and so on.

The adoption of the initials CDO to denote the name of our city -- Cagayan de Oro, probably started when the CDO meat products entered the local market and started becoming popular. I guess the company's marketing people may not want to admonish us for the misuse of their brand name for it is a big way to promote their products!

In 2008, the Cagayan de Oro Historical and Cultural Commission recommended to the City Council, the adoption of a new set of initials of the city as a way to stop the prevalent use of CDO, which is not legally ours.

Also, it is unethical to be borrowing the identity of a prominent food manufacturer and adopt it as our own.

Based on my research, there are two important laws that gave our city two different names during the Spanish colonial period and in 1950.

On February 27, 1871, Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre issued a decree making Cagayan the official capital of the Misamis Province, also known as the Segundo Distrito de Mindanao. This huge province consisted of the present Misamis Oriental, Misamis Occidental, Bukidnon, Camiguin, Iligan and Dapitan. The capital town was henceforth known as Cagayan de Misamis.

Decades later, on June 15, 1950, Pres. Elpidio Quirino signed Republic Act 521 creating the City of Cagayan de Oro. Note that in these two important laws, the letters "de" were used. The Spanish word "de" in English means "of" and in the case of place names, it means "that is" or it is to signify something.

Like Cagayan that is in Misamis (probably to differentiate it from Cagayan of Northern Luzon) and our city's name that means Cagayan of Gold.

On April 21, 2008, the City Council passed Ordinance No. 10962-2008 adopting "CdeO" as the official initials of the city of Cagayan de Oro. The principal author of this ordinance is Councilor Alden Bacal, then chair of the Tourism Committee.

Unfortunately, this ordinance has not been widely disseminated to the public since its passage in 2008. Very few have been using the official initials of our city. One of them is SunStar Cagayan de Oro.

This adoption of CdeO as the distinct initials to denote the name Cagayan de Oro is to be used for all the official and semi-official activities of the city.
In Section 2 of said ordinance, it says that the official initials "CdeO" should be printed and stamped in all city government stationaries, IDs, official documents and banners, signs, posters and other similar materials authorized by the City Mayor or the City Council.

In Section 3, it enjoined the tri-media, national offices and agencies and other private agencies located and stationed in the city as well as the barangay officials to use "CdeO" in their websites and other official communications, posters, signs and other similar materials.

We can definitely promote our city with CdeO as our global brand name. There are endless and wonderful possibilities in which we can do this through the use of our official initials. This way, many will know and differentiate the fact that CDO is for hotdogs, corned beef and other meaty delights while CdeO means Cagayan de Oro, Cagayan of Gold.