‘I Love OPM’ emerges as an exceptionally significant show

If it plays its cards right, ABS-CBN could have an exceptionally significant production in its new singing tilt, “I Love OPM.” The show debuted on Saturday, Feb. 13, and effectively outlined its admirable intention to go against the nation’s “deathless” colonial mentality by showcasing Filipino songs sung by foreigners!

It was a timely and in fact long-delayed reminder to all “colonial” Filipinos who prefer foreign songs over our own pop or folk anthems that they are not immediately inferior to the imports.—If foreigners love singing them, how could they be also-rans?

The supreme irony here is that it’s foreign singers who are teaching us to love our very own! Well, as long as the message finally comes across…

“I Love OPM” doesn’t only have a worthy theme and goal, it also works hard to present it effectively and entertainingly. It has bothered to look for talents in 25 countries, and most of the singers it presented last Feb. 13 did well, with three of them, German-Irish Jeena, American Ryan and Pakistani Dio, “surviving” to the next round.

The best performance was turned in by Jeena, whose adoptive parents are both Filipino. She looks and sounds good enough to seriously think of launching a stellar entertainment career after the tilt—even if she doesn’t end up winning it.

Ryan was also popular with the viewers and the studio audience, while Dio hit our spot, because he opted to perform, not the usual OPM love song, but Pepe Smith’s sassy rock number, “Beep Beep”!

The show is also telecast Sundays, so eight OPM-loving foreign singers can be expected to perform each week—the better to drive home the key point that our songs deserve to be sung and savored even more than all those foreign imports, which have little or nothing to do or say about us!

On the other hand, the debut telecast of “I Love OPM” revealed some weak limits that could dilute its cumulative impact and bracing effect on our pop culture. First off, host Anne Curtis didn’t do much to add to the show’s fun factor, and “sidekick” Eric Nicolas wasn’t as diverting as he was obviously intended to be.

In addition, the presence of other regulars not known for speaking Filipino well sent mixed signals to viewers.

It’s ironically perplexing to see them in a show that promotes Filipino songs, with some of the foreign contestants speaking the language better.

All told, however, “I Love OPM” is shaping up to be an exceptionally significant show that could persuade “colonially minded” Filipinos to take their cue from OPM fans and finally realize that our homegrown songs and pop culture should not be looked down on, but valued, upheld and supported.

In time, this more enlightened and less stubbornly “colonized” attitude could spread and inform other fields—like our musical theater, which is similarly dominated and limited by a preponderance of foreign shows, or local versions of “imported” material. Hope springs!