Oral Communication

Creative Pitch
Travel Guide
Region 12 | Region 13 | ARMM

Red means it needs citation.

Why

Objective:
The three steps in understanding culture is to research, converse, and immerse. Keeping that in
mind, our goal is to inform the Filipino youth in the lives of Mindanaoan people residing in
Regions 12, 13, and ARMM (the first step is research).

This is to remove the negative stereotypes against them such as that they are violent due to the
actions of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF; although there are people who attest that
Tausugs are hospitable, friendly, and peaceful unless provoked, there are also those who view
them negatively and identify them as bloodthirsty, suspicious, vindictive, hot-headed,
treacherous, anti-government, thief, bandit, or savage (Bruno,1973). And to remove the
capitalist mindset that is prevalent in our target audience, visualizing the image of
sensationalized tourist spots rather than the local community when thinking about domestic
travel. These two mindsets give a false impression on the regions and perpetuate the apathetic
and alienating treatment of our generation.

Our secondary objective is to persuade them of travelling there for themselves to experience the
community firsthand (the second and third step is to converse and immerse). This is also to
promote their local products to boost their economy.

Target Audience:
Our target audience are Filipino teenagers of the upper-middle class who could afford domestic
travel and have certain prejudices on the people of Mindanao, specifically those who are in our
assigned regions.

“Filipino”
We chose Filipinos instead of foreigners since it is important for the citizens of our country to be
well-informed, mindful, and appreciative of our culture.

“teenagers”
Our aim is to the teenage demographic since they are the most detached generation from our
culture mostly due to addiction to social media and favoring foreign brands instead of our own.
Consequently, colonial mentality involves the automatic rejection of anything that is Filipino and
an automatic and uncritical preference for anything American or White (David & Okazaki,
2006b)

“upper-middle class who could afford domestic travel”

This is to keep in line with our objective that is to persuade them to travel to said regions to
promote their local livelihoods.
The upper-middle class is also prone to the capitalist mindset brought by the world of images.
The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the extent that the economy has totally
subjugated them. It is no more than the economy developing for itself. It is the true reflection of
the production of things, and the false objectification of the producers. (Debord, 1967)

“prejudices on the people of Mindanao”

As said, some people of the aforementioned demographic hold some prejudices against the
local residents of our assigned regions though it may be unintentional. The news may
unintentionally contribute to these prejudices as their content mostly focuses on the negative
actions of the few rather than the collective good of the residents.

How

Main focus:
To show the lives of the residents of Regions 12, 13, and ARMM, we will focus on three C’s:
commerce, celebration, and community.

Commerce
Though commerce is an important aspect of capitalist economy, we will not emphasize it with
the intent of commodification, using a place's culture and the cultural artifacts to make a large
enough profit (Fiaux). Instead, we will show their local products and services as their livelihood
that marks their identity as contributing members of the Philippine market.

Celebration
This consists of their festivals, music, dances, and cultural symbols or icons of heritage. In other
words, we will show the art of their culture as art is a means of showing celebration, what they
value as a society and their driving principles in daily life. This aspect of culture within any
community has been subject to the negative aspects of commodification. We aim to deconstruct
these elements to show works of people, not works of art.

Community
Last, we would show what their daily life is like, their individual attitudes and personalities. This
is a glimpse of what being immersed in their community would be like. Here, we would show
that the people in the images of the travel guide are real people with emotions and aspirations,
not printed-out commodities.
Creative process:
Though our work would still be within the system of images, our objective is to persuade them
into experiencing their culture firsthand. In order to properly inform and persuade the target
audience, we would show the genuine authenticity of their heritage through comprehensive
research and conversation.
We will conduct our research through verified resources and the like. And if possible, we would
interview individual people living there.

What

The travel guide shall showcase and embody all of the aforementioned concepts.