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MANILA – November 21, 2013 – At the 2nd Marketing and Communication Industry Forum "Working Towards a Healthy World for Children", guest speakers and experts discussed how home and the community, including media, can build a nurturing environment for young people.
In his talk "Kids Healthy Lifestyle Choices," Department of Health Assistant Secretary Enrique Tayag discussed the rise of non-communicable diseases and its support mechanisms.
According to Tayag, the leading causes of deaths in the Philippines are from lifestyle diseases. Major factors for such diseases are unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, tobacco use, and alcohol use.
When it comes to encouraging children to eat nutritious food, Tayag said advertisers are in part responsible for the fast food diet which people tend to rely on. "The advertisements have a big part in this. Children don’t just eat hotdogs when they are born. It’s the parents that feed them, and where do the parents get the ideas? From you," Tayag said.
Tayag also said that for the PilipinasGo4Health campaign, the Department of Health decided to think like advertisers. "How can we change habits? So we’re trying to understand children’s habits," he said.
Tayag’s talk was followed by Dr. and Mrs. Allan and Maribel Dionisio’s talk, "Parents of Today." The couple shared that trends include the increasing need for two-income families, distance parenting, school as a substitute parent, single parenting, the prominent influence of media and the internet, and more teens as single parents.
To respond to these trends, Dr. Dionisio said there is a need for prevention. "Preventing damage is better than repairing damage," he said. While much of prevention is the parent’s responsibility, the couple said the government and media also have to contribute.
"Prevention is not top of mind. Parenting is not top of mind," said Dr. Dionisio, who gave examples of how media can help shape the demand for parenting skills and parenting education. These included the Jollibee Family Values Award and the Wyeth Nurture Network.
Meanwhile, Fr. Tito Caluag, head Integrated Public Services and chaplain of ABS-CBN Corporation, shared his reflections on building caring communities for children. "One of the greatest injustices is when we rob our young people of the ability to dream," Caluag said.
According to him, there are three environments that are key to the formation of children: family, school, and the community and media.
"Media is the number one institution that influences our youth," said Caluag, noting that media plays a very important role in addressing the widening disparity between classes in Asia.
"Over the last three years when you talk about media, Hindi mo na maintindihan. It’s growing at a dizzying pace," he said, adding that there is a need to democratise media. "Part of going digital is to make it more accessible to people. We need to fight for that," he said.
The morning session ended with a panel discussion among Unilever Philippines Vice President for Corporate Affairs Chito Macapagal, Ad Standards Council’s JR Hernandez, 4As chair Matec Villanueva, Nestle Philippines Director of Communications Sandra Puno, Dr. Allan and Mrs. Maribel Dionisio, and Fr. Tito Caluag.
Hernandez posed the question: "How as an industry can we move towards more responsible programming?"
Caluag responded by saying there is a need to go back to stories. "Part of what our children need to understand is their story and their family’s story. Part of our salvation is regaining our story even as a nation. Part of our dysfunction as a nation is we don’t know our story," he said. He also said that the media must help people make conscious choices through the use of narratives.
Dionisio said that when it comes to advertising family values, there is tension of doing something good vs. earning more money. "At a certain point, someone has to make a conscious decision to make it an advocacy," he said.
Meanwhile, Puno said that contrary to belief, values sell. "The onus is on all of us to tell exciting stories. Walang karapatan ang values to be boring," she said.
For her part, Mrs. Dionisio said that people tend to forget that good values such as spending quality time with family are important. "Media and commercials can carry out these good values," she said.
Presented by Ad Standards Council, the Advertising Foundation of the Philippines, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas and the Philippine Association of National Advertisers, the 2nd Marketing and Communication Industry Forum was held on November 20 at Fairmont Hotel in Makati City.
