In the summer of 1969, before my senior year at the University of the Philippines, I took part in a rural radio forum experiment, dubbed Radyo Kaunlaran (radio for progress) in four villages in Pandi, Bulacan. I volunteered to be a non-participant observer and documented the discussions that capped each group radio listening session. The project itself had all the bells and whistles of a social science experiment as it used a pre-test post-test control group design. This means that it had a control group (villages not exposed to group listening and discussion), baseline survey, and a post-test after airing 10 drama broadcasts over DZRP, a government radio station with nationwide reach.
Spearheaded by Alex T. Quarmyne, a UNESCO visiting professor, and Fil-Ame V. Caces of the then UP Institute of Mass Communication, Radyo Kaunlaran was launched in 1969-1970 to test the applicability of the rural radio forum approach in the Philippine setting. Rural radio forums had earlier been successfully applied in the Canada, India and Africa.
The educational broadcasting project aimed to arouse the rural residents’ consciousness of their role in development. It was assumed that increased awareness of community problems would inspire rural residents to participate in self-help development programs. Radyo Kaunlaran’s community development broadcasts covered nutrition, environmental sanitation, maternal and child care, health education, and agriculture. The content of the radio dramas was based on extensive research results on those five development topics.
True to the nature of radio forums, Radyo Kaunlaran organized listening groups in four villages. Community leaders delivered short talks to inform the village residents that the broadcasts were especially intended for them. The broadcasts, which followed these talks, reflected traditional, deep-rooted values, at the same time they also introduced new ideas about health, sanitation and disease control. Every Sunday afternoon (1600 hrs), four groups of about 20 to 40 residents got together in a school house or village center to listen to the dramas. A flipchart, which summarized the key points presented in the broadcast, aided the discussion led by a community leader. In my village, it was the school teacher who served as our discussion leader.
Toward the later phases of the project, the coordinators concluded that the group listening technique could be made to work, and that radio broadcasts, lectures and films could be used in a single integrated program for development support.
Source: Alex T. Quarmyne and Fil-Ame Caces. 1970. Radyo Kaunlaran: A Case Study. University of the Philippines Community Development Research Council, UP Diliman, Quezon City.
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