In Benguet, where the poverty is best described as stark due to minimal resources for development, she has come to terms with the fact that she needs to reach out more to her constituents and they to her, for governance to be participatory and uplifting to the majority.

Tabanda has various messages for women in tribal communities who, although they contribute a lot to the province's commercial vegetable production, are uncompensated or underpaid for their labor: Women are capable of being leaders, of holding public office. Women can participate and benefit from community development. Women have rights equal to the men.

Gender equality is at the core of her messages. How to say it isn't a problem. How to propagate it. Media, she thought, could help. The few women who are already in local government like Tabanda -- a mere 2 to 3 percent in the Asia-Pacific region as of June 2001, according to the United Nations (ESCAP) --- have wanted to tap the media.

Tabanda clarified that it isn't herself she wants to project, even if she is a rarity in the male-dominated politics of Benguet. That she made it in politics and is exerting efforts to make it truly serve ordinary folk is already an important statement.

"It's not all traditional politics," Tabanda, president of the Network of Elected Filipino Women for Good Governance, said, in reference to the politics of patronage that was still the norm in the country.

Tabanda in an advocate of transformative leadership ---the kind of leadership that improves women's position in society and provides resources and opportunities for women to meet their needs and realize their full potential.

It is for the likes of Vice-Gov. Tabanda, and others like her in governance and decision-making, that the Media and Transformative Leadership Congress was organized in Manila last November, said Khunying Supatra Masdit, president of the Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics (CAPWIP), one of the congress organizers.

"Media is the frontier to be conquered. It's undoubtedly an essential element in the campaign for a culture of transformative leadership," she said.

It isn't an easy frontier to conquer, though, according to journalist Melinda Quintos-De Jesus, executive director of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, one of the organizers of the congress.

Media is a double-bladed sword, so to speak. "It is both part of the problem as it is part of the solution," Quintos-de Jesus told some 250 Asian participants.

It is not easy to become attractive copy for radio, television, newspapers and the Internet. The likes of Tabanda face tough challenges ahead to bring women's issues, concerns and aspirations to the attention of the public and policy makers.

The scant attention to women’s issues lies in age-old conventions of journalism where there is, as De Jesus pointed out, a bias for bad news and what is out-of-the-norm.

The drive for profit where the press has become big business likewise eases out stories that don't raise ratings, circulation and advertisements. Technological advancements, which media empires have used to expand audience reach, have focused "only on the news interesting to and concerning the wealthiest and most powerful nations of the world."

De Jesus noted, "The expansion has not been accompanied with the proportionate inclusion of people around the world." News empires, in being too big, have lost their grasp of issues that are genuinely relevant. She observed that the press has "lost touch with the people who live on the margins, effectively relegating their issues to the margins of the policy conversation."

Media has lost its links with the ordinary folk. In certain instances, she said this has resulted in a "stronger alliance of the press with those in power and in the establishment, rather than out of the power loop."

Feeding women’s stories to media

But all is not lost. Thanks to a public that's critical, De Jesus said, the free press around the world has done some soul-searching over questions of content and conduct.

It is possible to work with media and feed it gender issues, as some groups have learned. Bandana Rana of Sancharika Samuha (Women's Communicators Forum) in Nepal has approached the work with a clear view of media's role.

"One of the most important aspects of communications for women leaders and development worker is actual outreach to mainstream media as the largest informer and maker of public opinion," she said.

The media, in her mind, is a partner. "Unless the voices and activities of women leaders are reported, from a progressive women's viewpoint, and on an on-going basis, stereotypes and generalizations will be perpetuated."

To Rana, much is at stake. "The best of women and development work can also be rendered useless if not adequately and appropriately reported by the media," she said.

Working since 1997, Rana's group has improved gender coverage in the media in Nepal through gender training for journalists, monitoring of women's issues in the news, providing a news service, holding monthly talk programs between journalists and social workers, and giving awards for outstanding journalistic reports on gender issues.

There are some journalists in the mainstream media whose writings are focused on gender issues. One such network of journalists is the Women's Feature Service (WFS), a Unesco project since 1978. The WFS in India sees its features published in over 50 newspapers and magazines in the country and abroad, according to its executive director Angana Parekh.

Building bridges with the media, she said, isn't only about landing in the news. The common ground is credibility and trust, where the distortion or sensational reporting of facts has no place.

Situations do vary. In Tabanda's case, the press works in the city, hardly coming to far-flung villages.

"In my case, I have to innovate," Tabanda said, baring plans to go into newsletters using the local language, training persons in development communication and trying out the proven ways to tell the women’s stories.