Three babies are born in the Philippines every minute. In a country of almost 84 million, where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line and at least two out of 10 school-age children are malnourished, we have to ask: what kind of lives are they living in the present? What future can we offer them?

Most Filipinos are unaware of the fact that many of their difficulties are connected to issues of population and development: from the lack of jobs, to the deteriorating state of the environment, to the contentious morality issue involving the use of contraceptives. Not easily discernible too is how much we have to do with these problems and how we can be part of the solution.

The Philippine Center for Population and Development and the Probe Media Foundation Inc. decided to join forces and harness the power of media to address these very important concerns. Through a year-long media fellowship, TV practitioners from Laoag, Naga, Manila, Iloilo, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Samar, Cotabato, Surigao, Cagayan de Oro and General Santos City were given the opportunity to tackle the burning issues on population and development in their respective regions and provinces.

Population and Media: Visions for the Present began with a five-day workshop in June 2006. Experts in the media industry trained fellows and discussed issues related to population and development, which included understanding statistics and demography and human development. Fellows learned how to translate this into effective video reports for their audiences.

The objective was to report and create awareness about the impact of population and development in their respective provinces. The fellows were given three months to produce and air reports in their television programs. The result: over four hours of news reports, documentaries, features and talk shows.

As a fitting conclusion to the fellowship, the participants met again for a three-day peer review session of their work. A panel of experts on population studies and media joined the evaluation. The reviews showed that while the technical quality of the presentations could still be improved and accuracy in the use of population statistical data was not up to standard, the in-depth reports have taken population and development reporting to a deeper level - something that could and should not be limited to stories about contraceptives and family planning. Population and development are multi-faceted concerns that affect the lives of all Filipinos in all regions and in all levels of society.

Population and Media: Visions for the Present presents these stories categorized in various themes. They contain the valuable message that we Filipinos can do much in the present to give our children, and ourselves, a healthier-and better--future.