Rey Anthony Chiu
BILAR, Bohol, September 20, 2012 (PIA) – Believing that a pen is mightier than the sword, or the gun, army special forces here picked their writing skills to train for their new tasks: as information advocates to the villages.
Assigned in a place where restored peace made combat tactics inconsequential, soldier members of the army’s elite Special Forces battalion here draw the battle plans in winning another ground in the fight: the determining factor of winning the community’s hearts through information dissemination.
For this, they train in news writing and photo-journalism in a bid to equip them with the bring out the good news happening in communities to the mainstream, said Tiara Lourdes Torero Bulilan of Capitol’s socio economic and environment management (SEEM) cluster.
Torero, along with mediaman Ric Obedencio and the Philippine Information Agency in Bohol handled the newswriting and basic photojournalism courses for the SF at their camp at Riverside in Bilar August 22 and September 20.
The trained SF members team up with police officers and Bohol community organizers as part of the Prosperity Teams organizing the Countryside Development Program (CDP) Purok Power Movement (PPM) in Bohol’s villages, said SF Civil Military Operations officer Captain Jason Que.
When assigned to organize communities and galvanize them against possible incursions by radical elements exploiting social issues to instigate people to turn against the government, the PRO team members morph into developmental communicators from their usual warrior image, Liza Quirog, Capitol Seem Cluster and PRO Teams coordinator explains.