# Batibot

Batibot is a Philippine television educational show produced by the Philippine Children's Television Foundation (PCTF). It debuted in 1984, a co-production of PCTV and the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) from 1983 to 1984.

## History
### Sesame! (1983–1984)

The precursor of Batibot was Sesame!, a Filipino version of the American children's show, Sesame Street. Sesame! was a co-production of the Philippine Children's Television Foundation (PCTF) and the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) with support from the Philippine government. It aired in 1983 as a bilingual (Filipino and English) program. The series featured two Muppet-style characters Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing. Both characters were inspired from a Filipino fable, "The Monkey and the Turtle", which was annotated to English by José Rizal in 1889.
Government support ended in 1984 and the co-production arrangement with CTW was cancelled.

### Batibot (1985–2003)

PCTF decided to produce its own show titled Batibot and debuted in February 1985. Batibot was conceptualized and produced by Feny Delos Angeles-Bautista, a teacher from the Community of Learners Foundation and writer Rene Villanueva. Unlike the bilingual (Filipino and English) Sesame!, Batibot was done entirely in Filipino and featured stories in a Philippine context. An arrangement with CTW was made in order for the characters Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing to continue their appearance including one human character Kuya Mario.
Airing on weekdays with a time slot of 10:30 AM, the series consistently ranked in 1985 among the top 10 daytime shows in the Philippines, outdoing the ratings of Sesame! and Sesame Street, which first aired in the country in 1970.
By February 1989, the producers were experiencing financial constraints which placed uncertainty regarding the future airing of the show. PCTF were in negotiations for an Indonesian version of Batibot; coincidentally, CTW were also in negotiations for an Indonesian version of Sesame Street. Shortly thereafter, CTW informed PCTF of their decision to repossess the characters Pong Pagong and Kiko Matsing. PCTF negotiated with CTW for the continued use of the characters for four more years under a license arrangement. Despite, the extension to use the characters, PCTF decided to phase out their appearances because of the costs. By 1994, the two characters were returned to CTW and were never used again.
In 1999, Batibot was relaunched as Batang Batibot airing on a Saturday morning timeslot.
Batibot ended its run in 2003.

### TV5's Batibot (2010–2013)

TV5 announced in 2010 that it would revive Batibot. It premiered on November 27, 2010. TV5's version of Batibot featured a different set of human characters, Ate Maya and Kuya Fidel. Instead of a Monday–Friday broadcast format, the new series was aired on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. The airing of the series lasted until 2013.

## Cast and characters

Batibot featured characters portrayed by puppets as well as human characters. Most of the puppets used for the show were locally made. Kiko Matsing and Pong Pagong who were among the main characters of the original Batibot were owned and crafted by CTW.

### Batibot (2010)

* – from the original Batibot

## Spin-offs

Batibot has its own spin-off program Koko Kwik Kwak (named after a bird character), which also aired on GMA Network from 1999 to 2002 every weekday mornings.

## Mobile app

On August 14, 2015, Smart Communications launched a mobile app for Android devices based on the show. Smart together with the Community of Learners Foundation commissioned OrangeFix to develop the app. The development of the app content costed around ₱1 million.
The Batibot app is specifically targeted to children from kindergarten to Grade 3. It is aligned with the Department of Education's kindergarten curriculum and is in Filipino. An iOS version of the app was released on July 5, 2017.