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Church Radio Service Links People In Remote Northern Mountains

Updated: December 21, 2005 05:00 PM GMT
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A diocesan radio station called for relatives of a certain Diana Bayle, arriving from Singapore. "Please bring three horses to carry her baggage and meet her at the end of the road," the announcer said.

Another broadcast announced: "A man named Ama Pedro died at Abra Provincial Hospital yesterday. We call all from Barangay Agsimao, Tineg, who can help carry his corpse to meet us at the clearing at 8:00 tomorrow morning." Tineg, about 400 kilometers north of Manila, is Abra province´s northernmost town.

The people of Abra, wedged between the Cordillera and Ilocos mountain ranges, say broadcasting "awag," or announcements, is more important to them than news updates on the only AM radio station operating every day in their landlocked province within the Cordillera Administrative Region. A government station broadcasts occasionally, mainly to send out its own announcements.

Carlos Sagban, a village elder of Mataragan, told UCA News he is "indebted" to station DZPA. "Through it, we can communicate faster, especially here in the mountains," the 55-year-old man said. DZPA, standing for Dial Zone "Puso ti Abra" (Heart of Abra), is broadcast over 873 kilohertz. Mataragan is about 30 kilometers northeast of Bangued, the seat of Bangued diocese.

The awag service is needed in Abra, where mountains and rivers make many areas unreachable by vehicle or even mobile phones, says Merla Ruiz, DZPA´s manager. No bridges link the capital Bangued with the other 27 municipalities. Motorized wooden barges are the usual mode of carrying vehicles across rivers.

"Not a single (land-based) vehicle has reached our (village) since my childhood days," Sagban said. "When awag stops, that may mean there have been significant improvements in infrastructure."

According to Ruiz, the announcements are "so important" that DZPA interrupts news and other programs to broadcast urgent concerns related to a person´s life or death. Some appeal for blood donations for patients. Children studying away from their home villages use the service to ask their parents to send them money for tuition or allowance. A notice about a lost wallet is more likely to be reported to the radio station than to a police station.

For a fee of 10 pesos (US$0.18) per broadcast, DZPA airs announcements 10:00-11:00 a.m. and 4:00-5:00 p.m. Those aired outside these regular hours cost 20 pesos per broadcast. Ruiz said the payments for awag average about 15,500 pesos a month, about five percent of DZPA´s total monthly income.

She also said the service stops only when the station closes for Easter Sunday, after broadcasting the one-hour Mass that begins at 6:00 a.m.

The station manager recalled before land-based phone lines and mobile phones reached Bangued´s outskirts, DZPA also served as a "phone booth" for families of overseas workers, with queues of people waiting for overseas calls from relatives. He said a typical announcement in those days would be: "Nana Leonor Timbreza of Dolores, Abra, come to DZPA station on Sunday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. because your daughter Hermelina from Hong Kong will be calling."

Today, the need for the overseas phone booth service has dwindled, but even with mobile phones, awag is "indispensable" to people announcing the death of relatives, says Father Carmelo Gonzales, the station´s director.

According to an essay Divine Word Father Richard Kraft wrote in 1984, the Divine Word Society, led by the late Bishop Odilo Etspueler of Bangued, founded DZPA on Feb. 1, 1970, as a commercial enterprise. "It was hoped the broadcast apostolate of the diocese would be supported by selling airtime to advertisers," he explained. Divine Word missioners, he also wrote, envisioned the station as "a method of evangelization and instruction in the faith."

Evangelization remains the station´s primary mission, with regular programs providing advice on family concerns and issues, weekend updates on catechism activities in various parishes, and commentaries and discussions on news and issues from a Christian perspective.

Father Gonzales said Masses, Holy Week prayers and chants, ordinations, jubilees and other special Church events are broadcast for the benefit of the sick, elderly and people in remote places whom priests cannot visit regularly, or where there are no pastoral services because they are hard to reach.

The 5-kilowatt station, based in the Father Arnold Janssen Communication Center in Bangued, also broadcasts early morning agricultural news and discussions, along with regular news and commentaries. The broadcasts reach some parts of neighboring Ilocos and other provinces in the Cordillera region.

While DZPA continues its primary mission of evangelization, Ruiz said, it also aims to bring together two major ethno-linguistic groups in the province. Indigenous Tingguians inhabit a larger portion of Abra´s land area, mostly upland, while Ilocanos living in plains and valleys make up more than half of the province´s 250,000 people.

END

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