By Jeanette May Trinidad,
student-producer
Episode aired last August 13, 2014
Guest: Mr Nilo Ramoso (Head of Pawikan Conservation Project)
It is truly a surprise when, on
your first day of class, you are already tasked to work on a major production
with less than a week preparation. But that was what happened to me. And while
it had its difficulties, it was an experience that I would be thankful for
throughout my whole life.
Being the first in my Broadcast
Journalism 101 class to work on the student productions for Kwentuhang Pets,
ATBP., the production was difficult for me in a lot of ways. Firstly, I was not
used to the program because it was the first time I heard of it. I usually have
classes during the program’s timeslot, so I couldn’t really tune in and know
how the program exactly went. Secondly, it had been almost a year since I last
produced for radio in my BC 102 (Radio Production) class, and even then, the
most I did for an airing program was producing a segment. Fortunately, Prof.
Khrysta Rara (who was the host of the show and my BJ 101 professor) helped me
with the conceptualization of the episode, and the topics we thought of doing revolved
around wildlife conservation mostly, with differences being only on whether the
wildlife is on land or water.
But what really challenged me was
finding a guest who would be willing to go on air on such a short notice. When
I finally decided to push through with making the episode majorly a pawikan “spotlight”
episode (which came about after Prof. Rara’s suggestion of pawikans being a possible
topic), I tried contacting every NGO related to marine life or pawikans, and
even the DENR. The people reply to my e-mails or answer my calls but say they
are unavailable. I only managed to find a guest from the Biodiversity
Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources a day
before the episode aired, and it had been through the help of my family
(particularly my sister whose friend’s friend is in the Bantay Pawikan in
Morong, Bataan). The guest was Mr. Nilo Ramoso, the Pawikan Conservation
Project head, and an expert on Pawikans.
Another topic that had taken up
my episode was rescued cats and dogs, particularly because Ms. Hanna Sanchez
who is a tri-athlete and swimmer had an event coming up to raise funds for
rescued cats, dogs, and pitbulls by the Compassion and Responsibility for
Animals (CARA) group. We also had her on the show to talk about her and CARA’s fund-raising
endeavor, but only through phone patch.
Both guests had been, fortunately,
very kind and willing to be part of the program, and it was through them that
the episode pushed through. The in-booth experience as a co-host of Prof. Rara
during the episode was also nerve-wracking in the beginning (especially because
it had also been a year since I last went live on air for BC 102), but then it
became a thrilling experience for me later on. There were a lot of topics that we managed to cover: from the difference of a marine turtle to a land turtle or tortoise, conservation efforts on the pawikan, the issues involving pawikans like poaching, different trivia like why the turtle "cries", and most importantly the significance of the pawikan to the environment and why it should be conserved. The discussion was very lively and animated, and it was honestly very fun.
At the end of it all, the
production experience imparted something big in me aside from learning the
details of production. It made me much more aware about animals, about marine wildlife
especially in my episode, and how vital they really are to the lives of every
person and every organism. It opened my eyes to the pawikan’s role in the
environment and the rest of our natural resources, and that it must really be
preserved.
And, surprise! Now, I have “Going
to Morong, Bataan to see a Pawikan Hatching” in my bucket list.
If you’ve missed the episode,
then here are the links to the recording and transcript:
Episode:
Transcript:
No comments:
Post a Comment