Harnessing rural radio for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the Philippines

Even at this Digital Age, the old-fashioned radio is still the most pervasive medium of mass communication, especially in the grassroots. Radio substantially contributes to behavior change by raising the level of awareness and understanding of rural people on burning issues like climate change. In the Philippines, there are about 659 radio stations, whose listenership is predominantly in the rural areas where more than two million farmers reside. Radio has advantages over the other mass media like television and newspapers in terms of being handy, portable and cheap. With the Internet, radio now has converged with television and has a global reach. Hence, aside from being effective information, education and entertainment medium, radio is a powerful vehicle for social mobilization towards climate change mitigation and adaptation in the grassroots. Along with this, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in Southeast Asia (CCAFS SEA) partnered with the Philippine Federation of Rural Broadcasters (PFRB) in piloting a rural radio campaign dubbed as 'Climate Change i-Broadkas Mo' in strategic regions of the Philippines in 2015 to 2016. The radio campaign provided PFRB affiliated broadcasters with scripts and ready-to-be-aired (RTBA) interviews on climate-smart agriculture. The scripts were meant to be read by participating rural broadcasters as a short material or segment within their program and used as filler or insert between segments and/or between musical pieces. Taking off from the pilot campaign, the second phase of Climate Change i-Brodkas Mo! kicked off in mid-2018 by PFRB in partnership with CCAFS SEA and DA Regional Field Offices (DA RFOs). The 2018 campaign is essentially an intensified follow up and expansion of the pilot campaign in 2015 to 2016 and will wind up towards the end of 2019. The project trained 268 rural broadcasters and produced 276 ready-to-be-aired scripts, 285 canned interviews, 10 radio spots and two jingles in five different dialects in the Philippines. These were sent to more than 200 PFRB members and their network of community radio practitioners all over the Philippines with a combined listenership of two million. The materials are timeless, so these can be used continuously beyond the project. Aside from reaching a critical mass of farmers, the project enhanced the capacities of rural broadcasters on climate change reporting and created a demand for radio-based distance learning in Northern Philippines.