Making Waves: Community Audio Towers
Stories of Participatory Communication
for Social Change
TITLE: Community Audio Towers
COUNTRY: Philippines
MAIN FOCUS: Community development
PLACE: Tacunan, Maragusan, Floryda (CATs), and Nagbukel, Pinagdanglayan Dolores, Concordia, Tulungatong Development and Support Communication (DSC projects)
BENEFICIARIES: Around 4,000 in each community
FUNDING: FAO/UNDP, UNICEF, Department of Agriculture
MEDIA: Cone speakers mounted on towers
Very early in the morning, just as the sun rises, the music from Tacunan Audio Tower filtrates with an echo through trees and plantations, providing company to peasants as they work over their crops.
From time to time an announcement can be heard between two songs: the teacher will not be at the school today, the lost carabao of Mr. Ostong has been found wandering near the main road, next Thursday is immunisation day at the health centre, station manager Jacinto Jake Sarco is calling for a meeting of all members of the Community Media Council tomorrow evening….
Six all-weather cone speakers, mounted on top of a mast, send the sounds through the air as far as 3 miles. A different person representing a social sector prepares each programme and airs it, thus becoming a voluntary broadcaster and earning additional respect from the barangay (community). They are all part of the Community Media Council (CMC) meeting every second Thursday of the month to discuss issues that are relevant to the community and prepare programming.
The CMC is meeting today, even if the station hasn't been airing its programmes for the last two months, since the Chinese amplifier broke down. The CMC is discussing the difficulties to get spare parts for the amplifier. The missing parts can't be tracked down in Davao City, not even in Manila. Nonetheless, the community has not justsat and waited.
During the months off-the-air, a new and higher mast has been built and placed on a better spot. Before, the station was housed in a small bamboo hut, now it has its own concrete building just beside the barangay hall. Plans to install a transmitter and thus become a radio station will not mean discarding the public address system: "Once the loudspeakers start talking, people turn into a captive audience", asserts Jake Sarco.
In the late 1980s, FAO started the CATs (Community Audio Towers), and UNICEF, the ComPAS (Community Public Address System), in the late 1990s. Both are similar communication strategies based on community audio towers. Two microphones jacked into a Karaoke playback system connected to 20-watt (FAO) or 180-watt (UNICEF) amplifiers and four or six cone speakers mounted on small towers that is the recipe for CATs and ComPAS. The difference between both development communication approaches is mainly in the process. The FAO project puts emphasis on community preparation through a diagnosis of the social and economic situation, and the establishment of a CMC, which democratically represents the various sectors of the barangay.
At the heart of both projects is the support for rural communities to use this narrowcasting technology for community communication and social development. The local communication system aims to raise and discuss local issues and mobilise community members on children's rights, health and nutrition, child protection, education, livelihood, agriculture, environment, religion, politics and social events that matter to them. Community leaders representing all sectors are trained in community broadcasting, interviewing, radio announcing, script writing, radio jingles, drama and other radio production formats. Sectors that are represented at the Community Media Council may vary from one place to another, but generally include from its inception a very equilibrated representation from farmers, women, elderly people, youth, health workers, educators, local authorities, religious leaders and so on. It is important to note that women make up half of the representatives at the CMC, and are very active as broadcasters.
The Tacunan Audio Towers started its operations on August 16, 1992. Tacunan is a small barangay in Tugbok City, about a one hour drive from Davao City in Mindanao. Other sites followed: Maragusan(April 8, 1995) in Davao del Norte, and Floryda (February 18, 1998) in Kapalong. Maragusan became a radio station in November 1998, when a small 20-watt transmitter was installed with the help of the Tambuli project. Other sites feature Development Communication Support activities established by the FAO/UNDP PCARRD project, though not always centred around a Community Audio Tower Nagbukel in Isabela, Pinagdanglayan Dolores in Quezon, Concordia in Guimaras, and Tulungatong in Zamboanga City.
So far, Tacunan has been the most successful experience, and according to the community, the station has been instrumental in all the development the barangay has lived through during the 1990s. The population has increasingly acquired a high level of consciousness concerning its collective needs and the potential solutions. Through very well-established programming, all the most relevant subjects are discussed week-by-week.
From six to seven in the evenings, as families gather at home after a long journey, Tacunan Audio Tower delivers some food for thought on topics of interest for the community: health (Monday), farming (Tuesday), women rights (Wednesday), barangay council (Thursday), cooperatives (Friday), community (Saturday), and religious programmes (Sunday). Programmes such as Ayaw'g ingna Tigulang na Ko (Don't Tell Them I'm Old), Bahandi sa Kinabuhi (Wealth of Life), Agrikulturang Pangmasa (People's Agriculture), I kaw, Ako usa ka batan-on (You and Me, the Youth), and Ang Kababayen-an Karon (The Women of Today). By 1999 a new slot on children's rightswas added with support from UNICEF.
The Philippines has experienced a rapid growth of mass media over the last two decades due to the technology revolution, more liberal economic policies, the return of democracy, deregulation of telecommunications and decentralisation. The result is the growth of provincial media, mainly commercial radio and television. According to recent statistics, there are 328 AM and 317 FM radio stations covering 9 percent of the population through 25 million radio receivers. Even television is growing due to expanded rural electrification; about 128 stations are currently operating. None of these seems to have substantially modified the communication and information landscape in terms of real access to media by communities.
The very sharp characterisation of media by Louie N. Tabing, the coordinator of the Tambuli project, is as valid today as it was twenty years ago: "Profit, Propaganda, Power and Privilege" are the central motivations of mass media in the Philippines. The "PPPP" acronym still reigns over the vast majority of the population, except in those communities where small but important projects like Tambuli or CATs have been set. They are there only to make a difference.
The idea of community audio towers has been tried before to support social and economic development in poor and marginalised rural communities in third world countries. In Ethiopia, Thailand or Mozambique just to mention a few cases during the 1980s community audio towers have served the purpose of stimulating community organisation around issues of social development and the strengthening of cultural identity.
"Our condition has improved in seven years, since the Community Audio Tower was set up in Tacunan. We now have a road we didn't have before, we have electricity, we have water..." It might or might not be a direct result of the Community Audio Tower but certainly the generalised perception is that the CAT brought a wealth of economic and social development to Tacunan. People do not even hesitate when been asked about the benefits of the communication system. It may seem a little thing compared to a radio station, but certainly those three or four villages in Tacunan or Maragusan have learned to value the impact of the rural communication tool that was put in their hands.
It is no surprise that Maragusan took a step forward and requested support to upgrade the Community Audio Tower which in fact was set up with training and support from Tacunan to a radio station. A transmitter makes the difference technology wise, but the contents and operational framework remain the same.
In 1993, one year after the Tacunan CAT started its operation, the first challenge in the problem tree was achieved: water. The next big leap forward was electricity in 1994. That was not all; according to the villagers the Community Audio Tower was instrumental in addressing agricultural problems, such as the control of banana pests and the drive against the rhinoceros beetle that affects coconut trees. The Maragusan CAT played an important role in the establishment of several agricultural ventures such as: the 3,000-hectare durian production project, and the tilapia hatchery which serves as income generating activity for DXLM broadcasters.
By 1994 the Tacunan community had drafted a five-year development plan with help from the Development Support Communication Project (FAO/UNDP). The plan was the output of a training workshop on Goal Oriented Project Planning.
The set-up of a Community Audio Tower involves a thorough process of training and analysis of community problems and solutions. This methodology enables the community to start their media activities with full knowledge about the causes of underdevelopment and the potential for resolving and overcoming problems. Before the cone speakers begin to air their messages, a group of trainees from the community participate in training that includes the development of a "problem tree", collectively drawn on a board and later translated into a plan that captures in detail the nature of the obstacles preventing the community from developing. In Tacunan, for example, the lack of water was identified as one of the main problems in the community.
Next to the problem tree, a "tree of life" will be updated every year, incorporating those objectives of development that have been met. The tree of life should blossom and grow as the community finds its way in social, cultural and economic development. These exercises are no doubt the basis of participation and the strength of the CATs experience.
The main obstacle is the limited reach of the sound. By 1999 Tacunan built a higher tower and placed it on a new spot to enhance its reach throughout the neighbouring communities. The Chinese 20-watt amplifier broke down and couldn't be repaired for several months.
Field visits to Tacunan and Maragusan (Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte in Mindanao) and meetings with Jacinto Sarco manager of Tacunan CAT, with Mayor Gerome Lamparas Jr. and Loreta Gonzalez, President of the CMC of Maragusan, as well as the interviews with Frank E. Endaya, Project Manager in charge of development communication at the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Unit XI, and Louie N. Tabing, Tambuli project director, provided the basic information for this chapter.
The FAO Web site posts A Farmer First Approach to Agricultural Communication: a Case Study fromthe Philippines by Lydda Gaviria, among other interesting articles.
The DSC Newslink a quarterly publication of the FAO/UNDP Development Support Communication Project (PHI/87/006) in Los Baños, Laguna, has printed several articles on the Tacunan experience.
UHAY a quarterly publication of the Department of Agriculture, Region XI; and Monitor, published by Southern Mindanao Agriculture Resources Research and Development Consortium (SMARRDEC) have also printed several short pieces on Maragusan and Tacunan Community Audio Towers
Information on UNICEF ComPAS project provided by Teresa Stuart, UNICEF Communication Officer in Manila.
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