PIA journalism seminar 

empowers AFI-Panglao 

PANGLAO, Bohol, August 10 (PIA)—Right at the time when people think the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) is wasting government funds for doing nothing, the office in Bohol did not get distracted and continued on its mandates: spread government information and empower communities for them to make smarter decisions. 

Here, for three days, the PIA along with Bohol journalist Ric Obedencio brought the office’s community outreach program called Student Campus Organ Operation and Production Seminar (SCOOPS), an all school newspaper operation and production training module for young writers of Arbasto Foundation Incorporated (AFI). 

A private school sitting at the end of the runway of the new Panglao Bohol Airport, AFI through Marilou Arbasto, a secondary school teacher who heard of the PIA Bohol outreach writing workshops, requested for the in-campus three-day training for their Grade VII to Grade 12 campus writers. 

“We have been looking for competent resource persons, and the PIA was a stand-out,” Arbasto said. 

While commercial groups conducting similar training for student writers ask for over P3,000 per head in registration, the PIA workshops only ask organizers to serve snacks to student writer participants to save on time, and everything else is free. 

Another school beneficiary of the PIA training, Alicia Technical Vocational High School said they used to send their writers to a three-day workshop and paid much only to find out that a more substantive training is there and from then on, they tap the government’s free service. 

The campus journalists had news writing, photo journalism, feature writing, copy reading and headline writing, editorial cartooning, junior broadcasting and newspaper layout. 

Other than these modules which are all incorporated with writing workshops, the PIA has sports writing, science and technology writing, editorial writing, editorial columns and creative literary writing in the training module. 

The same writers’ capacity training also includes Newspaper Organization and Administration, as well as technical assistance packages to get a school paper out of the printing press. 

Joining the training were the school’s practice teachers, school paper advisers, and about 50 student writers cramped inside the second floor classroom inside the school campus. 

The PIA believes that empowering the kids to be responsible news writers and readers could be a huge help in their being able to segregate that which is true and fake and help the government counter false information. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol) 

PIA journalism workshops attempt to empower student writers of Arbasto Foundation Incorporated in Panglao. Students, along with student teachers and school papers advisers participated in the free writing workshops. (PIABohol)