CEDAW/C/PHI/Q/6/Add.1 Stereotypes and education 14. Please provide information on the impact of the initiatives listed in paragraph 168 to raise public consciousness and understanding of women’s issues in order to address the stereotyped and negative portrayal of women and girls in the media and on any other measures taken to promote a more balanced and non-stereotypical image of women and men in the media. In recent years, GOs, NGOs and media institutions have actively initiated individual and concerted efforts to address the stereotyped and negative portrayal of women and girls in media. Quality TV or QTV Channel 11, a commercial television channel launched in November 2005 dubbed as “channel for the Filipina” launched in November 2005, is entirely devoted to discussing the whole gamut of issues and problems affecting the lives of Filipino women. One of the most important program is entitled “Women’s Desk” helps/educates women and children victims of abuses. A longterm partnership is also currently being explored between QTV and NCRFW. A study under the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) conducted by the Miriam College Communication Arts Department and Communication Foundation for Asia (CFA) in 2005 shows an increase in the visibility of women in the news from 1995 to 2004. However, women’s under-representation and stereotyping in the news remain. The study shows that women are highest on story topics on celebrity/arts/sports (67%), but lowest on topics that dominate the news agenda, namely politics/government (19%) and economy (18%). Expert opinion in the news is also overwhelmingly male and men are also most likely to represent the popular opinion. A print survey conducted by the Women’s Feature Service (WFS) in ten (10) areas nationwide provides that the media in the National Capital Region (NCR) has an obvious effort to bring out women stories. Their overall treatment of women’s stories is positive both in language and photos and there is a clear effort to strike a balance of negative and positive stories in almost all of the sections. However, in other areas covered by the survey, the frequency of coverage on women only averaged 8.5% and 8.7% in dailies and weekly publications, respectively. NCRFW has been getting increasing requests for gender-related information and experts from broadcast and print media. During the women’s month celebration in March 2006 which is celebrated nationwide around a theme (this year’s theme is CEDAW ng Bayan, Karapatan ng Kababaihan or CEDAW for the Nation and for the Rights of Women) the Commission had 63 interviews on TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines and had also documented the publication of 25 articles on women’s rights, achievements, and concerns. These do not include releases by media in local government units. In a landmark case, women’s groups and organizations, children’s advocates, civil society organizations and the NCRFW successfully campaigned for the removal of offensive and sexist liquor and radio advertisements in 2004. The Advertising Board of the Philippines (AdBoard) ordered the pull-out of the infamous liquor ad and the liquor company replaced the ad. The social welfare department’s project Empowerment of Paternal Responsibilities (ERPAT) has trained a total of 530 father-volunteers and leaders on parenting and proper child rearing, while is project on Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Act has served 3 million children ages 06, raised awareness and trained 103,525 parents and other caregivers on responsible parenthood, 13