DAVAO CITY — The Manila Broadcasting Company will highlight its 45th founding anniversary by holding a nationwide community service dubbed as Operation Tulong starting next month.
For this year’s celebration, the company extended its corporate social responsibility initiative by expanding the services beyond Metro Manila to provide aid and facilitate meaningful changes within the communities served by the broadcast network nationwide which will kick off November 11.
The outreach program started in 1978 which was launched at MBC’s mother station at DZRH in Manila.
For 2023, the Operation Tulong will be hosted by MBC’s regional stations such as Love Radio, Yes the Best, Easy Rock, and AksyonRadyo stations in La Union,Baguio, Dagupan, Laoag, Lucena, San Fernando, Santiago, Tarlac, Bacolod, Cebu, Iloilo, Tacloban, Butuan, Davao, General Santos City, and Cagayan de Oro.
The public service program started from a simple request for help to Manny Calpito, who responded the requests from indigent listeners for financial assistance to buy medicines. Back then, its member – volunteers were taxi drivers, and their primary role was to pick-up donations, pledged on air via the station’s evening programs.
The program received a special Papal award from no less than Pope John Paul II during his visit in 1981, believing that radiomen have the power to get things done,
Operation Tulong has also allowed listeners to air their grievances, call on missing relatives all over the world, seek help for free legal assistance, or appeal to government officials to act on issues and complaints. In 1983, it was elevated to the Radio Hall of Fame in the Catholic Mass Media Awards, where to this day, DZRH continues to be cited for airing
Through the years, Operation Tulong has made its presence felt in various ways. DZRH anchor Mae Binauhanhas constantly worked on feeding programs, medical and dental missions, bloodletting activities, job fairs, and other outreach activities in cooperation with LGUs, medical associations, and private entities .
They have treated public utility drivers to modest care packages, with entertainment thrown in. They man emergency assistance kiosks during All Saints Day and Holy Week. Fellowship activities with soldiers wounded in Marawi were also held. Transistor radios have been donated to disaster-prone areas. Volunteers have led the regular cleanup of Manila Bay.
With its teams on 24/7 duty, the company joins every disaster search, rescue and relief operations of the national government, with the support of the volunteers called as Operation Tulongrenders. Field reporters from all over the country, especially from the areas of concern provide round the clock updates during natural calamities and disasters.
As of now, Operation Tulong collaborates with the International Council For Small Business Philippines and different Rotary Clubs, provides business opportunities to poor families living in Metro Manila.
Operation Tulong has also strengthened the sense of volunteerism in civic society, by bymaking it a full-fledged corporate-wide program, encompassing all its stations nationwide, including FM Radio Operations, MBC now harnesses the strength, reach, and public awareness of more than 200 stations, which for years, have made it the largest broadcasting network in Asia.Daily needs assessment by the stations will give rise to subsequent work on the grassroots level, serving as a conduit between the citizenry as well as public and private entities that can provide assistance.
It was in 1996, when it expanded operations to an unprecedented 97% of the Philippine archipelago under its “one station, one nation initiative,” through the stewardship of MBC Chairman Fred J. Elizalde, it remains the only network in the country that is on the air nationwide, 24-hours a day, on digital stereo quality, simulcast via satellite to relay stations in key provincial cities. Having taken new media by the horns, and further enhanced by its presence on television via DZRH News Television, it continues to mine the potential of the internet and maximize MBC Operation Tulong’s accessibility to audiences both here and abroad.
All these are part of the network’s humble way of paying back the Filipino public, which for more than eight solid decades, has witnessed and supported DZRH, Love Radio, Yes The Best, Easy Rock, AksyonRadyo, and Radyo Natin as Manila Broadcasting Company set the trends on radio with its mien for grassroots entertainment and its unerring pulse on our daily lives.
