Standing in front of a microphone, voice actor Phil Cruz pretends to wield an amulet to defeat the devil for the latest installment of one of the Philippines’ few surviving radio dramas.
Cruz is part of a small team of voice actors and technicians producing shows that are broadcast in Filipino by DZRH, one of the oldest radio stations in the nation.
Radio dramas were the main source of entertainment for Filipino families after World War II, just like the rest of the world, but their popularity faded with the rise of television, social media and video livestreaming.
Photo: AFP
Still, many longtime listeners, including retirees, farmers, factory workers and taxi drivers, still tune in to catch the latest episode of their favorite horror or drama.
“We’re the only ones left,” Cruz, 64, said during a break in recording at a modern studio incongruously located in a Manila theme park.
Cruz followed his father into voice acting in 1979, back when DZRH aired 18 drama programs over nine hours a day in stiff competition with other broadcasters. Now it produces seven. Among them is Night of Horror, the station’s oldest series that has been terrifying audiences for 66 years with tales of devils, vampires and murderous skeletons. Love, family and poverty are among the themes tackled in other long-running dramas, such as You’re My Only Life and This Is Our Life.
Gerry Mutia produces the sound effects that help listeners visualize the stories and, while many can be computer-generated, he still prefers “the old way.”
Mutia keeps a box of objects in the studio to simulate sounds: coconut shells for galloping horses, a door bolt for the cocking of a gun and stamping his feet in a box of leaves for footsteps in a forest.
He even uses his own voice for a cat’s meow.
“The computer can replicate the sound of a slap, but it is more realistic doing it the old way,” Mutia said, demonstrating by striking together a pair of old rubber shoe soles.
‘only entertainment’
The beauty of radio was that it reached “everyone, even the poor,” said Rosanna Villegas, 63.
She, like Cruz, followed her radio actor father into the industry.
“It’s a means of entertainment, which comes on top of what they watch on TV or the movies,” she said.
“They [fans] tell us their stress disappears,” she said.
Among the DZRH team’s loyal fans is Henry Amadure, who lives by himself on a farm about 60km south of Manila. Amadure listens to The Promise of Tomorrow on a small radio that he always takes with him to the field as he slashes weeds around taro plants. The series is about a friendship between a poor university student and his rich classmate.
“It makes me happy and keeps me company because I work alone,” said Amadure, 58, who was introduced to radio dramas by his grandfather as a teenager. “Sometimes you pick up life lessons from it.”
Amadure, who is separated from his wife, spends 74 Philippine pesos (US$1.30) a week on batteries to keep the radio playing all day while he works on his 4-hectare farm.
Like other farmers in the area, he has no electricity.
His neighbor Cristiteta Arpon, 35, said radio dramas are “our only entertainment.”
“We will be sad if it disappears. It’s our everyday companion and the only thing that makes us happy,” the mother of four said. “We don’t have to waste money” buying Internet access for social media or YouTube.
Food caterer Nerissa Julao, 52, is a member of a radio drama fan club that boasts 17,000 members on Facebook.
Julao tunes in while preparing dishes with two assistants in Guagua municipality, about 80km northwest of Manila.
“Listening to radio dramas sharpens my imagination. The scenes take shape in my mind because the acting is very convincing,” she said.
However, “drama fanatics like us are increasingly becoming a rare breed,” she added.
‘Radio is forever’
The DZRH voice actors said they have no formal training for radio dramas and had picked up their skills by observing their predecessors.
Most of them hold down other jobs such as dubbing Mexican and South Korean television dramas or doing voice-overs.
The challenge for the remaining radio dramas is to attract a new generation of listeners. DZRH has branched out to social media, uploading episodes to YouTube and sharing the links on Facebook, X and TikTok.
“We have a varied audience, but it’s true many of them are also growing old,” Cruz said. “We need to produce material targeting younger people.”
Villegas is optimistic that the dramas will survive.
“For me, radio is forever,” she said.
“It will not disappear because it has such a wide audience,” she said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS