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A "kissa" singer at a live radio performance.
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Any radio enthusiast would feel at home in the Philippines, an
archipelago of some 7,100 islands. Turn the AM dial a notch, and
you'll likely pick up half a dozen stations, each bumping against
the other in the ever-crowded radio spectrum. And the news is
never simply read over the airwaves -- it is shouted. You can't
become a radio announcer here if you don't have the booming, macho
voice of God or if you can't roll your r's for longer than three
seconds. Reverb is used extravagantly to polish off each news
item before you move to the next story. The rat-a-tat-tat machine-gun
pace of newscasts never loses its cadence; news of a power outage is aired
with the same urgency of a coup. Philippine radio makes NPR sound
like a lullaby.
Philippine radio makes NPR sound like a lullaby. There is no place more fanatical about radios than Mindanao.
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As a radio reporter and a lover of the spoken word, I feel at
home here. The first time I spent the night in a village in Mindanao,
I was awakened before sunrise by six radios playing at full volume.
The news -- a cacophony of voices and crackling live field reports
-- barged into my room through the thin bamboo walls. There is
no place more fanatical about radios than Mindanao. Radios are
cheap, and they work even when power is cut and the whole island
is plunged into darkness. But most importantly, radio stations
are always the first to know the news. If the local radio station
doesn't know something, someone will call in and tell them.
Radio broadcasts are unusually popular in Mindanao.
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While traveling on the most dangerous roads in Mindanao, our
driver -- a former Muslim rebel -- would instinctively switch
on the car radio, just in case there were any ambushes or major
military operations along our route. As we were traveling early
one morning in North Cotabato Province, we heard on the radio
that the MILF [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] had felled several
high-voltage power lines with explosives. It must have just
happened, as we had just enough time to swerve to avoid a tangle
of cables and toppled posts.
The decades-old conflict in Mindanao is one of the most under-reported
wars in the world. Mindanao is also one of the most dangerous
places to be a journalist. Local reporters who live in Mindanao
constantly face threats; journalists -- especially radio journalists
-- are often gunned down for what they say, often in their broadcast
booths as they're saying it.
A "kissa" violinist performs at a radio performance.
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Nonetheless, radio was our unseen guide throughout our entire
journey. While we were there, the country's national press dropped
Mindanao off its pages and airwaves to make room for the war
in Iraq. There was no news from Mindanao, even as some of the
biggest battles were raging on the country's own doorstep. Only
the local radio stations continued to cover Mindanao's own war
with loyalty.
NEXT: Midsayap Battle
PREVIOUS: Songs of Resistance
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