Feny de los Angeles – TV producer
De los Angeles, Feny
Feny de los Angeles is a TV producer, educator, and children’s literature writer.
Feny de los Angeles is a TV producer, educator, and children’s literature writer. She was born in Quezon City on 5 July 1958. She is the second of eight children of Walfrido de los Angeles and Irene Montano. Playwright and novelist Servando de los Angeles is her grandfather. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Family Life and Child Development from the University of the Philippines (UP), 1979, where she taught upon graduation and served as chairperson of the Department of Family Life and Child Development, UP Diliman from 1980 to 1983. She has a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Bank Street College of Education in New York, 1989. She has also taken graduate courses in psychology and in communications at the University of the Philippines.
De los Angeles was co-founder of two nongovernmental organizations committed to children: Community of Learners Foundation (COLF) and the Philippine Children’s Television Foundation (PCTVF) which produced the award-winning children’s show Batibot (Small but Strong) and other educational television programs and multimedia products.
She trained as a curriculum director for the Philippine Sesame Street Project of the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) in 1983. Upon the establishment of PCTVF in 1984, she became the research and curriculum director of Batibot, and later its executive producer. The program ran from 1984 to 2000 on RPN 9, PTV 4, ABS-CBN, and GMA, and was revived in 2010 on TV5. The TV program spawned Radyo Batibot (Batibot Radio), broadcast in the late 1980s on DZAM, later called DZAR. It also launched Batibot Books in collaboration with Anvil Publishing, children’s audio cassettes with Ivory Records, live shows for children, and the TV show Pin-Pin, 1987-92, a Chinese-Filipino children’s program produced in cooperation with Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran. She was also the executive producer of the following PCTVF-produced shows aired on GMA Network: 1896 Kalayaan, a children’s magazine show on culture and history, 1995-96, and PG (Parents’ Guide), 1996-99, a magazine show on parenting.
As an educator and family life and child development specialist, de los Angeles has devoted her work to children and families through schools, media, community-based educational programs and capacity-building programs for the past 39 years. She is the Executive Director of COLF, a pioneer in progressive and inclusive education in the Philippines, which has been implementing working models of developmentally appropriate, culturally relevant, and gender-fair educational programs for Filipino children. COLF has been a long-time partner of UNICEF, the Department of Education, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development to improve the quality of education and early childhood care and development programs in the Philippines. COLF continues the work of PCTVF in developing digital media such as the Batibot app for today’s Filipino children.
De los Angeles has worked as an international consultant in various countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Colombia, and South Africa, and has been active in various international partnerships in education and child development, children’s media, and children’s rights. From 1993 to 2001, she was actively involved in the Consultative Group for Early Childhood Care and Development and served as a member of the International Secretariat representing Southeast Asia from 1990 up to 2001. She was also a founding member of the International Council of WATCH or the World Alliance of Television for Children and served as a member of the Board of the World Summit for Children’s Media Foundation.
De los Angeles has also written storybooks for children which were published by Cacho Hermanos, UNICEF, and PCTVF: Ang Kuya ni Karina (Karina’s Older Brother) and Ang Prinsesang Ayaw Matulog (The Princess Who Does Not Want to Sleep), 1996; and Isang Mundong Makabata (A Child-friendly World) and Sa Bagong Planeta (In the New Planet), 1997.
During her term as research and curriculum director and executive producer of Batibot, the show won numerous best children’s program citations from the Gawad CCP Para sa Telebisyon, Star Awards for Television, Catholic Mass Media Awards, and the Prix Jeunesse, the latter regarded as the Oscars of children’s programming around the world.
