TACLOBAN CITY, Nov. 19 (PNA) – The state-owned Radyo ng Bayan is now broadcasting live in Tacloban City, adding another venue where the people of this typhoon-devastated city can get daily updates on the government efforts to bring vital aid as well as information that affects their daily lives.
It started regular broadcasting at 104.3 mhz in the FM band Monday with call sign DYCT out of an emergency broadcast facility at the Leyte Sports Development Center which has been transformed into a command center for the government’s relief efforts.
Director Tito Cruz, head of the Philippine Broadcasting Service-Bureau of Broadcast Services, said that DYCT was put up in response to President Benigno S. Aquino III’s call for additional radio stations in Tacloban City.
Cruz said that radio stations are vital in disseminating information crucial to the people’s present situation that include critical announcements on retrieval, relief and medical missions.
To set up the radio station, he had to secure a license from the National Telecommunications Commission which gave them a temporary license to operate out of the exigency of the situation.
For equipment, he sent from Manila the transmitter that was previously used in Batanes and gathered personnel from different RnB stations to man the hastily-built makeshift station.
The chief technician, Engr. Julius Ungab, is from Manila while the station managers are Tony Pueblos of RnB Calbayog and Rene Monteclaro of RnB Iloilo.
DYCT is the first RnB station in Tacloban City, Cruz said.
“Since we have already put up this station, we are now considering of permanently keeping it operational,” he said.
Plans of putting up a RnB station in Tacloban City had already been in the pipeline even before Cruz took over the helms of the PBS-BBS.
For a permanent station, he said that they would now begin scouting for a high place where they would situate their transmitter.
“God willing, DYCT would become a permanent part of the lives of the people of Tacloban City from now on,” Cruz said. (PNA)