Four significant events a few days apart from each recently sent our head spinning. A major symposium on TV literacy for teachers and parents of Bacolod was staged by Anak TV at the Trinity School, a sprawling Christian private school tucked in a rustic corner of sugarlandia.
As though thirsty for media literacy, the 300-strong audience of teachers and parents from all over the city stayed glued on their seats in rapt attention despite the humidity and the fierce morning sun streaming in through the gym doors. By the time lunch was being served, we had already received four additional invitations to stage a similar event in their campuses or communities.
The Growing Place, a respected school in Fairview, Quezon City also gathered the young parents of its pupils to a powwow to discuss the merits and demerits of television vis a vis their kids. The parents left the hall bothered at the crassness of TV fare and unanimously vowed to be more prudent with the medium.
A few days after, the gracious Ricky Reyes opened his colossal house to welcome the spouses of Metro Manila’s mayors. It was there that Marikina Mayor Marides Fernando boldly took the cudgels for children and Anak TV by personally endorsing the advocacy, an appeal that was quickly picked up by the cities of Manila, Valenzuela and Caloocan. Mayor Fernando articulated her colleagues’ aghast at the increasingly bawdy TV programming especially at noontime.
Reyes, as though not yet saddled with advocacies of his own, echoed Mayor Fernando’s sentiments about the urgency of protecting children. While he admits that his young Paulinian ward is not yet victim to television’s inanities, sex and violence, Reyes nevertheless feels for other parents who are certainly troubled by unguided TV’s adverse influence on their kids.
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The next day, it was MTRCB’s turn. Chair Marissa Laguardia herded her entire board to a restaurant function room for a seminar on how sex and violence on TV and film can affect Filipino kid viewers.
"There are newly appointed members of the board and it makes sense to help set everything they are about to do for children in the proper perspective," the amiable MTRCB head explained.
By the time Anak TV had finished its presentation, the board was convinced that there was some cleaning up to do, starting with fine-tuning the classification and ratings schema to be undertaken by June Keithley’s committee.
New board member Amalia Fuentes offered to be of help and join the group sometime in its provincial sorties. TV host Jojo Alejar scheduled a discussion of the advocacy in his talk show and will soon be airing the TV plug that encourages family viewing.
For his part, director Butch Bautista, father of QC vice-mayor Herbert, offered help in any way that his son might be of service to the campaign. MTRCB executive director Edith Demetria of Pangasinan and Tessie Villarama, the amiable spouse of the former Bataan representative, invited Anak TV to their provinces to spread the gospel of responsible viewership among their constituents.
With the League of Cities of the Philippines, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and even the Philippine National Association of Advertisers (PANA) pitching in help, we anticipate that the crusade for child-sensitive television will pick up more steam and the need for stronger media literacy campaigns especially in the grassroots will be felt.
Anak TV needs more partners and fellow advocates.
(For more information on the advocacy, please visit anaktvweb.com or email anaktv_seal @yahoo.com)
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