by Gwendolyn Longid (Cordillera People’s Alliance) – 9 September, 2011
Defying the approaching Typhoon Mina on August 26th, a dozen community activists and grassroots journalists from the Sagada region of Mountain Province in the Cordillera, Philippines came together for a day-long seminar on the foundations of community radio broadcasting. The workshop was attended by members of the Sagada Environmental Guides Association (SEGA), Sagada Genuine Guides Association (SAGGAS), the Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Program (CHARMP), the Montañosa Research and Development Center (MRDC), and the Cordillera Disaster Response and Development Services (CorDis RDS), along with Radyo Sagada staff and volunteers. The activity was conducted through the initiative of Cordillera Peoples Alliance of Mountain Province and CorDis RDS, and was facilitated by Steve Da Silva of BASICS Community News Service, a people’s media organization from Canada that has a radio program on CHRY 105.5. in Toronto, Ontario, along with a regularly produced newspaper. BASICS carried out the workshop as part of a project of their own known as the School of People’s Journalism.
The day-long seminar was geared towards providing basic skills in community broadcasting for the various sectors and organizations in Sagada. The day’s activities covered technical aspects as well as the principles of community radio, with an emphasis on what distinguishes a people’s media organization from commercial radio. Da Silva from BASICS stressed that “a community media organization that doesn’t recognize that its heart and soul is the community – is the people – will very quickly find itself looking like commercial radio or dying out. If the corporate media served the people’s true interests and addressed their needs, then we wouldn’t need to create a people’s media apparatus.”
The participants engaged in various worshops and formats throughout the day. Gareth Likigan and Ben Calpi of SAGGAS role-played a mock interview with a student who does part time work as a tourist guide to meet ends meet. Others simulated a round table discussion focused on Sagada as a tourist hotspot. Brenda and Gaodan Angway of SEGA did a review on Sagada culture done by Brenda of Radyo Sagada and Gaodan Angway of SEGA. All participants were challenged in the art of improvisation – such as through simulated phone-in questions – a feature of radio broadcasting that sets it apart from other forms of media.
Through the activity, the organizers hoped to encourage more organizations to take on time slots at the recently formed Radyo Sagada station. The SAGGAS intend to have a radio show which delves on environmental issues. The SEGA has so far shared in the weekly program on solid waste management and regular volunteer work as anchor and newscasters at the radio.
Steve da Silva of BASICS Community News Service spent over a month in Mountain Province researching people’s struggles and indigenous struggles for self-determination against foreign mining companies and militarization. Da Silva, who was in the Philippines for the 4th International Assembly of the International League of People’s Struggles in Manila in early July, also joined Radyo Sagada for a series of interviews discussing some of the links between Canadian imperialism and the Philippines. From August 23-25, da Silva joined hosts Ma Karl, Habibi, and others for a series of back-to-back-to-back interviews, one on Canada’s notorious record of genocidal policies towards indigenous peoples in Canada, which continue up to the present day. “If the Canadian state can carry out a genocide of indigenous peoples in the present day right in its own country, then how do you think Canada is going to operate abroad when it confronts other indigenous or colonized peoples, such as the Igorot people here in the Cordillera.” Another discussion dealt with the widespread human rights violations associated with the overseas operation of Canadian mining companies, which also operate in the Cordillera, such the corporation Ivanhoe, which is heavily invested in Benguet-based Lepanto Mining.
On the final day, the interview covered the links between Canadian ‘development’ aggression around the world and the migrant worker programs in Canada that so many Filipinos and others around the world are trying to get in to. The conversation drew attention to how the policies of neoliberal globalization which displace peoples from their homelands create large pools of cheap labour for imperialist countries like Canada. The programs discussed included Canada’s Live-In Caregivers, the Seasonal Agriculatural Workers, and Temporary Foreign Workers.
The torrential rains that began to fall at the day’s end did not put a damper on the event, which ended on a high note with a lively discussion on the challenges but necessity of building a genuine community media organization from the ground up and through the people.
Writing and researching for BASICS Community News Service while in Mountain Province, Steve da Silva has a number of pieces coming out on the Cordillera that will be published at www.basicsnews.ca throughout the month of September 2011.
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