By Benjamin S. De Yro
Doomsayers have predicted that newspapering, as an industry, will fold its pages with the coming-of-age of the internet. They were wrong.
However, nothing was said of broadcast radio as it remained to be the main source of information for rural communites where reliable internal access is lacking.
Kantar Media, in a 2018 survey as published by Statista Research Development on June 21, 2021 reported that 62 percent of the respondents accessed media through radio. The Philippine Statistics Authority said radio is the second most used medium in 2013 while in a 2012 survey, the National Commission on Culture and the Arts said radio has reached 82 percent of Philippine households.
For the National Nutrition Council Region 2, the use of community radio has always been part of its information culture of excellence. It has created a niche of its own in the challenging world of communicating nutrition advocacies, unprecedented in recent memory; until the pandemic set it.
What started out as a loose group of media practitioners organized by NNC region 2 a decade ago, with only a handful members, is now an information power house tasked to bring timely and relevant nutrition information, its members increasing through the years.
Today, 12 radio stations, including five community radio stations have somehow became the backbone of the agency’s advocacies back to back with print and local television stations.
The members continue to be the primary sources to inform and communicate nutrition issues that affect and interest the public they serve specially for rural communities in the region.
They allowed themselves to bring talk shows, play nutrition campaign plugs and development jingles as NNC Region 2 mobilized them during the pandemic.
“At these trying times, it’s really critical and important that we bring to our people health and nutrition information vital to the very survival of the population as the virus rages on. Through our nutrition promotion, we must be able to influence behavior change, particularly the eating habits and practices of our populace and also feeding practices of mothers, caregivers and also the family. ” Meggie Lonzaga, regional nutrition coordinator for Region 2, said.
Majority of these community radios bring their messages most adapted to local context as they adopted the prevailing native languages like Ilocano and Ibanag prevalent in their respective areas like those in Cagayan and Isabela provinces.
Some of them have likewise adopted technological challenges from AM to FM and from analogue to digital if only re-strengthen their hold on their audiences.
Ironically, not all communities in the region have social media connectivity and these community radios will continue to play a significant, albeit, crucial role in the delivery nutrition information, expanding their coverage and engaging with a broader audience.
During these crucial times, community radio media men from the Balay Ni Ifan Task Force has indeed stepped up their roles as leaders in communication. To date, NNC Region 2 is a proud partner of media personalities and entities.
“They are a force to reckon with and we appreciate their assistance to us. We can’t ask for more,” Lonzaga, said.
In fact, these broadcast radios have married into their programs, products of social media like online messages, public announcements and even nutrition trivia. It has somehow become like love and marriage, a horse and carriage, so to speak.
For NNC Region 2, community radios are here to stay; with or without the pandemic. It is their job to deliver nutrition information, a job they have embraced long time ago. At the end of the day, community broadcast journalism is about results afflicting your community in the most progressive way.
Ask NNC region 2 and the task force- they have emblazoned that it in their hearts.### Benjamin De Yro/Edzell Arcinue/Maria Gisela Lonzaga
