The Story of Kapi Sanan and Midya

Last March 5 - 7, 2010, I was very lucky to be sent to Zamboanga City as one of the new media representatives from Davao City, and the Mindanao region, to participate in the “Seminar and Training On Covering Automated Elections and Campaign Finance”, sponsored by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Very lucky as I have been quite, no, very backlogged with my political articles for a certain political blog.

That aside…

During the 2nd day of the seminar, we were asked to create presentations regarding on what are the kinds of issues do journalists seem to find as a challenge to deal with in covering the elections, what is going wrong or right about our coverage of the elections, what are the usual overplayed and underplayed election story frames and pegs, what are our story plans and wish lists as journalists, and what actually are the best editorial policies and practices that are supposed to be practiced in the news room.

This is what I came up with for my group.

(Forgive me if it looks like a rough draft, but I’m just going to let it be.)

KAPI SANAN AND MIDYA

Once upon a time, in the magical land of “Ha Lalan”, there lived a group of people called the “Mam Boboto”. The Mam Bobotos were an opinionated bunch, willing to voice their concerns and opinions about their place if need be. Unfortunately, they seem to be struggling in their own homeland as they were invaded and commanded all their lives by the vicious and malicious monsters, “Kahi Rapan” and “Korap Shon.”

The Mam Bobotos, in every 3 to 6 years, would be promised to be saved from these villains by a troop of men and women named the “Kandi Datos.” The Mam Bobotos had a special collective power which they can pass off to the Kandi Datos: a very special, massive power which even some of the Mam Bobotos aren’t even aware that they have, something that makes the Kandi Datos more powerful to take on against Korap Shon and Kahi Rapan. Unfortunately, the monster Korap Shon always had a way to lure these Kandi Datos into not battling with these monsters invading the kingdom and instead even bring Kahi Rapan further into the land to harass the people even more.

Being sick and tired with all of this unending vicious cycle, one day, a man named “Kapi Sanan”, and his wife “Midya”, decided to once and for all come out and announce that they will help the Mam Bobotos by bringing out and talking about the Kandi Datos to see who is the best among them to finally bring down the monsters Korap Shon and Kahi Rapan,

It wasn’t an easy feat for Kapi Sanan and Midya. Though recently they were armed with powers such as “vigilance”, “fairness” and a special agimat named “citizen journalists,” they were also distracted and weakened by “moonlighting” and “complacency.”

Sometimes too, Kapi Sanan and Midya would be very distracted by the Kandi Datos with their means and methods to fight Korap Shon and Kahi Rapan when clearly most of them were fabrications for the Mam Bobotos to support them and to be able for the Mam Bobotos to unwittingly hand to them that special power. Kapi Sanan and Midya would sometimes forget too to ask the Mam Bobotos what would they really feel about a certain Kandi Dato. They were always treated as a group but forgotten as individuals. It was important to show how unique each member of the Mam Bobotos were.

So to be able for them to do their work best, Kapi Sanan and Midya flew to the stars and prayed hard to the gods for the following super powers: “walang takot”, “mas may kalayaan”, “mas transparent” at “mas totoong balita”

When they finally got what they fervently prayed for, aboard the flying birds “polisiya” and “praktis” off they went to help the true blue Kandi Dato stand out to finally fight and make Korap Shon and Kahi Rapan disappear in the land once and for all.

Thanks to Kapi Sanan and Midya, the best Kandi Dato wouldn’t have won the hearts of the Mam Bobotos of the Ha Lalan without them both.

Heck yeah, I got complimented for this, haha. But I do hope you enjoyed reading the story, and learned a great deal from this short piece

Tags: automated elections, campaign finance, campaigning, elections, fairy tale, filipino tale, halalan, journalist, media, news, pcij, philippine elections, philippines, politics, storytelling, zamboanga city

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