Educational Shows In The Philippines Part 1

I should explain and review some of the details I only know about the children television in the Philippines. Although, I only explain in separate parts because there are many of the titles that targeted the younger audience during the 90's until this present time.

During the time Sesame Street became popular in the Philippines, we have our own educational show on television. The first educational television show for kids entitled, Batibot or formerly called Sesame! It was my first local children show I watched when Sesame Street became a hit to the Philippines back then. I also heard that Batibot jumped into four TV stations in order to produce that show but the only TV station I knew was in GMA Network. I only know Batibot that contains Muppet-based characters like the famous Koko Kwik Kwak (the eagle),Kiko Matsing (the monkey),Pong Pagong (the turtle), and Manang Bola (an old woman who is a fortuneteller).Batibot also got a real-people hosts similar to Sesame Street like Bodjie Pascua. The show contains a lot of education values, stories based on the books, puppet shows and anything that is educational for the younger viewers during that time. Those Batibot days we're remarkable until the children's Western television influence the viewers of Batibot.The last Batibot series, Koko Kwik Kwak did not succeed very well that it ended in the year 2000 when GMA Network discontinued to produce the series.

During around 1994 and when Batibot ran, ABS-CBN's ETV (Educational Television) showed some educational shows to children. Namely, Sineskwela- a Science show about the young gang traveling anywhere in order to discover about Science. I only know about few characters of Sineskwela like Atom( a young boy with green suit and had an ability to shrink in order to discover anything small like particles, insects,etc.), and teacher Wacky (a bumbling professor in Science who owns a flying jeepney in the Season 3). Then, another ETV show debuted was Hiraya Manawari-tells about different characters with different moral values in every episode.
Bayani- about two kids travel in time from the old woman's ancient book that contains the details about the different Philippine heroes like the famous Jose Rizal, Bonifacio, Lapu-lapu and others. What's great about Bayani is that the Philippine heroes were portrayed by different famous actors and actresses like Eric Quizon who played as Jose Rizal. Followed by another ETV show Math Tinik-tells about a woman who is the owner of her laboratory,teacher and has magic about Math in order to help kids with their Math problems in every episode. Lastly, Epol Apple- tells about learning English with the help of the man portrayed by Bodjie Pascua, the man who worked in Batibot. All ofthe shows were shown in ABS-CBN every mornings in different schedules until 2003 The ETV shows were pretty hit for children especially for elementary students. ETV released also different volumes of all of the ETV shows in VHS tapes and even they gave it to many public and private schools in the Philippines. Thus, the shows from ETV were available in Knowledge Channels in order to help students in learning lessons in each subject. As of now, I never heard anything about Knowledge Channel nor about the ETV shows. I even manage to watched some of it's shows but only Sineskwela and Math Tinik were available in Studio 23 last year.

Another educational TV show I watched is the Eskwela ng Bayan series. Debuted in 2002 in NBN Network in mornings and afternoon, this was targeted among younger children and elementary students. Just like in ETV of ABS-CBN, there are four shows in the Eskwela ng Bayan series: Alikabok- tells about a young boy who lived with his grandmother. It tells about some Filipino stories and lessons too. What the young boy didn't know about his grandmother is that she has magic too. Karen's World- tells about a talking female carabao (a carabao mascot for real) named Karen and a young man named Ingo (portrayed by Tonipet Gaba) about English and they met lot's of friendly characters. The show showed also English lessons by animated pictures and examples.The setting took place in a province. Then, Solved- three kids who lived in the province tells about solving Math problems. And lastly,Why?-about a woman teaches people about Science and like in Math Tinik, she owns a laboratory. I remembered the first time I watched Eskwela ng Bayan series when I was in Grade 5 in the covered court with the other students. This series helped me alot achieve higher grades when I was in 6th Grade and my old best friend had the same interest in the show like me. Even the series had replays every week in the afternoon in RPN 9 in 2003. But then, when I was a Freshman in high school I never followed that series because the lessons are for elementary students until it went gone around 2004.

It's pretty great to watch that kind of educational that has great educational and moral lesson but it's very nostalgic and that was a long time ago.

Continue to part 2......