What the Radio Taught Me

As I started listening to 92.3 Wild FM Davao years after the last time I deliberately
wanted to listen to the radio, Regine Velasquezs Pangako started playing. Suddenly a
wave of nostalgia crashed over me and pulled me undereverything the radio taught me
when I was a child started bubbling up from my murky remembrances of a bygone time.

Growing up far from the big cities, I enjoyed my childhood in the curious in-between
of the analog age and the digital revolution. Breakfasts were dedicated to joining trivia
games on the radio and lazy afternoons were spent watching Powerpuff Girls. Most of my
days were spent curiously reading about countless topics in encyclopedias before I would
go out and play with the neighborhood kids.

In almost all of my childhood adventures, the radio was an ever-present being.

Upbeat jingles about toothpastes, soaps, and multivitamins were the earworms back in
the day, and slow love songs sang me to sleep when I wanted a siesta. The radio was
always there, providing the background music to the film that was my life.

As a bookworm, I would often learn about faraway places and their capitals, their
histories, and their people. Living with the radio, trivia games and newscasts helped tie
my knowledge with reality. I distinctly remember answering a trivia question on the capital
city of Cameroon (it was Yaound) on a daytime radio show, getting it right, and getting
mad because they voided the question. I was a ball of curiosity and knowledge, and the
radio taught me how to relate my learnings to the world.

Besides being educational, the radio also helped cement Filipino culture at the
time. OPM songs were played on air more than international ones, and entertainment
news updates dedicated themselves to the likes of Claudine Barretto, Kristine Hermosa,
and Marvin Agustin.

My trip to memory lane ended abruptly as Wild FM started playing some electronic
dance music, or EDM. I was hit with the sudden realization that radio has always evolved
to fit better with society. In its early days, radio served as the primary way people obtained
news updates. Then, as television took on the role of information dissemination, radio
turned to arts and culture to cement its permanence in an ever-changing world, managing
to stay relevant even until today.

Writing this article made me realize how dependent I used to be on the radio. To
me, it was the first mass medium to give me a broader sense of the world. The voices on
the airwaves connected me with everyone else better than any newspaper, magazine or
book ever could. I will always remember all that the radio taught me.

by Allyster Berthe Astronomo