NGOs to benefit from new cable TV

In a forum on public participation in the age of television held at the UP Diliman campus recently, participating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) reiterated their complaints about the dearth of broadcast media outlets that air pro-people issues and advocacies.

The few outlets that do tackle such issues and advocacies in their news and public affairs programs do so with a lack of understanding, if not, with outright indifference to points and perspectives that really matter, the NGOs attending the forum organized by the Policy Research and Editorial Services Inc. (PRESS), charged.

A response to the need of NGOs and other groups for a broadcast platform dedicated to the projection of their advocacy has emerged in the guise of "Isla," a cable TV channel that is being launched at 6 p.m. this coming New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31.

Isla, which sports the tagline "together we can be one island," seeks to harness people power to become a driving force in nation-building by communicating simple and replicable ways by which socio-economic, political, cultural and environmental problems can be solved, says John Carl L. Magno of CCI Asia Television, a broadcast content developer responsible for the cable TV byword "Lakbay TV."

Isla is being launched simultaneously on Home Cable Channel 68 with Juice (100 percent Natural Slice of life Squeezed Daily), a local lifestyle channel geared towards Filipino twenty-somethings that CCI Asia Television has also conceptualized.

According to Magno, Isla, the advocacy channel, is a response to the need for a medium to counter what he calls the "constant bombardment (in media) of disheartening developments that fuel negative self-image and helplessness" among Filipinos.

Isla will be a 24-hour channel on cable TV featuring shows that zero in on issues and subjects that affect people’s lives. It will communicate initiatives by government, civil society and the private sector that lead to genuine results but are simple enough to implement and replicate. It will feature good news happening in the Philippines amid the pervading bad news in the local and global scenes.

Among the issues that Isla will have room to feature are health and welfare; self-improvement programs; the environment; education; livelihood and poverty alleviation; indigenous peoples; graft and corruption; history and heritage; drugs and crimes; arts and culture; child abuse and family issues; peace and human rights; and women’ issues.

These will be tackled in a program line-up that includes: EntrePinoy (a how-to program that will redirect anti-poverty efforts to creating equity; encouraging livelihood and showing the way to entrepreneurship); Pinoy Fit (features on health concerns and alternative interventions); Ecotours (promoting sensible and sustainable tourist, with focus on protected areas); Green and golden ( a new look at clean and green projects and the recycling program with explicit how-to kits any family can implement); Urban Garden (a fresh look at successful community projects for others to follow); People Power Series (cases of people power and the modes and values by which people power is expressed); and, documentaries (dedicated to documentary-makers who look in-depth at the Filipino situation).