Media’s continuing responsibility

As Broadcasters and Cebu Press Freedom Month draws to a close today, media practitioners and the public must have come to realize and appreciate the importance of the role of mass media in keeping us well informed. When Typhoon “Pedring” struck most of Luzon and parts of the Visayas early this week, on-the-spot coverage by radio and TV showed the devastation to life and property. And mass media as messenger and teacher showed where we might have been remiss in planning our towns and cities in relation to environmental and living conditions, and educating ourselves to cope with disaster.

Broadcast and press organizations this month have gone through a series of instructive and refreshing seminars about essentials like writing, interviewing, production, performance and ethics for media practitioners, students and even media audiences. This all part of the Kapisanan ng mga Broadcasters’ theme for the month: “Taking the Higher Plane in Broadcasting.”

All of these have been responsible for effective media coverage of the various important events during the month: Typhoon “Pedring,” the RH Bill controversy, Cebu City’s “Road Revolution” (and “Road Rage” that followed), the Anti-Tabloid Ordinance, the planned flyovers, tourism and sports. I am sure you have followed detailed coverage of these events and have your own opinions even as the stories continue to unfold, and media continue to follow up with responsible editorials, columns and commentators adding to the mix.

Many, if not most civic organizations , rely on the media to further their thrusts.

Our Cebu Girl Scout Council last Sept. 21st held two successive meetings to end the current triennium. The executive council meeting took up, among administrative concerns, the orientation for chairmen of nominating and elections committees, the City Search for Model Girl Scouts 2011 next month among star, junior, senior and cadet scouts, their awarding on Oct. 28th, and the regional, junior, senior and cadet encampment at Camp Marina.

In the Council Board meeting that followed, we had Boy Scouts Cebu Council president Hernan Streegan as guest. He shared accomplishments of his council for the past year, gifted the Girl Scout Cebu Council with their book, “A Mountain to Climb, the Story of Boy Scouting in Cebu” and looked forward to continuing cooperation with the Cebu Girl Scouts in our thrusts for the youth.

Meanwhile, at our Cebu Zonta Club I monthly general membership meeting last Sept. 15th, we discussed a report from health committee member Letty Canoy about our involvement in next month’s Breast Cancer Month activities in cooperation with other groups.

One of these groups, the Legal Alternatives for Women (LAW) Center Inc., in which I am also involved as a consultant, has scheduled breast cancer awareness for our Women’s Kapihan panel discussion on Oct. 8th on radio dyLA. Rotarian May Ann Alcordo-Solomon, who is a cancer survivor, will be our guest.

In world events, the media kept us abreast of the first state visit of Pope Benedict XVI to his native Germany. His four-day marathon trip that took him to Berlin, the former communist East German city of Erfurt and staunchly Catholic Frieburg, was aimed at reinvigorating a Church in crisis in the face of abuse scandals and growing secularization. He addressed cheering masses and spoke with politicians as well as Muslim, Jewish, Protestant and Orthodox leaders in a conciliatory gesture among faiths. But media reports indicate that “he acknowledged that the Church was at a difficult crossroads” and urged the faithful to remain true to Rome “in this time of danger and radical change” and a “crisis of faith.”

And it also takes faith to bear with the recent passing away of former associates and friends. The latest was a former dyRC colleague who accompanied all our successful musical programs on the piano and with his musical ensemble, and who composed some of our most memorable songs in Cebuano and English, Emilio “Maestro Mil” Villareal. He passed away last Sept. l7th. We attended his wake last Saturday. There I met and condoled with his wife Enriqueta “Tita” and his nine children, some of whom came home from the States and one from Switzerland, whom I had met in a trip there earlier.

Then, last Wednesday, at the wake for good friend, Hayco Enterprises founder Go Ching Hai, who passed away last Tuesday, I met and condoled with his wife Martina “Beling” Go and two of his three children, fellow Zontian Nellie and City Sports Direcor Eddie Hayco. Do include in your prayers the peaceful repose of the soul of Engieneer Go Ching Hai.

Till next week, then, may God continue to bless us one and all!