ABS-CBN’s Bayan Mo, iPatrol Mo” (BMPM) will continue going around the Philippines in 2018 for its intensified campaign to promote responsible use of technology and social media, and to educate people on how to analyze information received on the radio, TV, newspaper, and the internet.

Last 2017, BMPM was able to go to not less than 29 locations in the country, including the hard to reach provinces of Batanes and Tawi-Tawi, to conduct workshops in citizen journalism and media literacy.

According to BMPM head Rowena “Weng” Paraan, it’s important that the public is properly equipped with the appropriate knowledge about the true goal and proper use of the media. Hence, from teaching citizen journalism for the past 10 years, BMPM has also started its media literacy campaign to fight the spread of fake news.

The media literacy campaign was formally launched last October 2017 through a news literacy workshop held in ABS-CBN that was attended by more than a hundred teachers from Quezon City, who teach journalism and media information literacy classes, a required high school subject.

“We partnered with different agencies and organizations like the Department of Education to teach our countrymen the process of delivering news, and the proper consumption and sharing of information through the use of social media,” Weng shared.

She further explained that BMPM’s advocacy has increased with 1.9 million members or Bayan Patrollers in the country, including 1 million on Facebook.

“In BMPM, we believe that ordinary people have the capacity and the right to make a difference, not just in reporting news on anomalies and community issues, but also in creating concrete change,” she said.

Aside from teaching students to take better pictures and videos using their cellphones in reporting news in their community, and how to detect fake news, BMPM also gave a platform to the youth’s advocacies in each location.

In Batanes, the lack of school books was discussed. In Boracay, they also tackled the fight of the indigenous tribe of the Ati to reclaim their ancestral domain. In Samar, LGBT students were given support when their transgender comfort rooms were hailed.

Among the places visited by BMPM last 2017 was Abra, Antipolo, Apayao, Baguio, Batangas, Calasiao, Camarines Sur, Cavite, Ifugao, Isabela, Malolos, Mindoro, Naga, Novaliches, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Quirino, Sorsogon, Tarlac, and Tuguegarao in Luzon. In Visayas they were able to go to Antique, Bohol, Cebu, Iloilo, and Tacloban, as well as Davao and Zamboanga in Mindanao.