Govt scribes urged: Feed readers relevance, substance
DAVAO CITY: Government information officers in Davao del Norte have been challenged to highly consider relevance and substance in their stories in relation to target readers.
Alex Roldan, regional director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), recently urged government communicators to give prior consideration to the essence and significance of their articles to the lives of the people on top of story presentation and grammar.
“Government media practitioners can only make powerful communication messages if these are relevant to the people,” according to Roldan.
The DILG regional director spoke to the government information officers who gathered at Kapalong Town Square for a communication messaging session, which was intended to draw messages in relation to ending local communist armed conflict ( Elcac) in compliance with Executive Order (EO) 70.
The event was also participated in by Civil Military Operations Officers of Philippine Army commands in Davao del Norte.
Regional heads of national government agencies were in attendance too to give their inputs to “The Imperatives of Communicating Elcac.”
Roldan, a former city information officer of Davao City, pointed out the need for telling the public the impact of government programs and projects long after the launching and initial phase of implementation.
He said he was saddened by the revelation of Col. Jacob Thaddeus Obligado, 10th Infantry Division G7, who said poverty, roads, livelihood, justice and other issues had been used by communist
groups against the government.
“So if these are the issues, don’t tell me ngawalagihimoanggobyernoniana
(Don’t tell me that the government did nothing about that),” Roldan added.
“Naamantaygihimo but it seems sa
pikasgi- project nilangawalataygihimo
(We did something regarding these but it seems that others are projecting that we did nothing),” he said.
Roldan enjoined the more than 2 million government workers and officials to talk about accomplishments of the government and to stand against the propaganda of just a few hundred strategists of the New People’s Army,
the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
“Don’t tell me ang 2 million mapelde (Don’t tell me that the 2 million would just be toppled by just a few hundreds),” he told the participants in the communication messaging session.
Hernie Mabalo,National Intelligence Coordinating Agency XI deputy regional director, viewed local implementation of EO 70 as a call to enliven again the spirit of
bayanihan (community spirit) by pooling resources of the government to serve the needs especially of those in the geographically isolated and depressed areas.
Obligado explained the executive order and presented the Provincial Local Peace Framework of Davao del Norte to the participants.
France Mae Macapagat, Philippine Information Agency (PIA) regional head, also presented the Communication Framework of Task Force Elcac and shared with the participants communication goals formulated at the regional level.
Giving his technical input to communication messaging, Dr. Mervin Zabala-Suaybaguio, the assistant provincial administrator of Davao del Norte, cited the importance of creating messages that audiences can relate with, making it easy for them to recall such messages.
The event was organized by PIADavao del Norte in partnership with the Provincial Information Communication and Knowledge Management Office and in cooperation with the Municipal Information Office of Kapalong.