Pagcor’s school-building project, 9 other PH entries win Gold Quill Awards

The Philippines brought home 10 Gold Quill awards from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). In photo are representatives from PAGCOR, SMART, ABS-CBN, Shell and PRU Life. Also in photo is Ms. Ritzi Aquino (4th from right) of IABC Philippines. Courtesy of Pagcor

MANILA, Philippines–The state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) has been named one of the global Gold Quill Awardees for 2014 for its school-building project.

Pagcor received the Gold Quill 2014 Award of Merit (Communication Management division/Corporate Social Responsibility category) for its  “Matuwid na Daan sa Silid-Aralan Project” (Building Schools through Good Governance) during the Excellence Gala Awards held at the Sheraton Center Toronto Hotel in Toronto, Canada, last June 9, 2014.

The award was given by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), a professional network of more than 15,000 business communicators in 70 countries. The Gold Quill is IABC’s flagship program that pays tribute to communication excellence worldwide and recognizes the strength of research-based, strategy driven work on an international scale.

Pagcor said the new achievement “puts the state-owned gaming firm among the ranks of the world’s companies with the best business communication and PR campaigns.”

Maricar Bautista, Pagcor’s assistant vice president for corporate communications, said the international Gold Quill Award that the state-owned gaming agency received also brought honor not only to Pagcor but to the country as well.

 “We are very proud of this achievement because it shows that Filipinos can truly stand out in the field of business communication,” Bautista said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Only six companies from the Philippines made it to the elite circle of the 2014 Gold Quill winners worldwide. Pagcor along with the other local companies have done the country proud. Their projects are equally laudable,” she said.

IABC received a total of 783 entries around the world. Of the 281 entries that qualified, 10 entries from the Philippines won–one from Pagcor, one from ABS-CBN, two from Shell, four from Globe, one from SMART and one from PRU Life UK.

Bautista said what was even more rewarding was the recognition that the international Gold Quill has given to Pagcor’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects, particularly the strong impact of the agency’s school building program to the education sector in the country.

The “Matuwid na Daan sa Silid-Aralan” project has already earned accolades from two of the Philippines’ prestigious PR award-giving bodies–the Excellence and Merit Awards from the ANVIL Awards of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) in 2013 and 2014 and another Merit Award from the Philippine Quill Awards (IABC Philippines) last year.

Pagcor said its school-building program was the agency’s way of helping the Philippine government address the shortage of classrooms in public schools nationwide. To date, the state-owned gaming firm has allocated a total of P5 billion for the project, P2 billion of which will be used to build classrooms in Yolanda-devastated areas.

The international evaluators who were tasked to review Pagcor’s winning entry praised the “Matuwid na Daan sa Silid-Aralan” project.

“This is an amazing program that delivered wonderful progress to the community.  Its video (on how Pagcor’s school-building program touches the lives of poor public students in different parts of the country) is strong and presents a compelling story,” the evaluators said.

“Pagcor carried out a thorough multi-media campaign through a variety of channels. The agency’s corporate communications group did a fantastic job of getting the word out and building a very strong campaign (about Pagcor’s school building project),” they added.

Amanda Hamilton Attwell, chair of the International Gold Quill for 2014, said the senior evaluators from different parts of the world reviewed all entries based on IABC’s global seven-point scale of excellence for strategic communication planning and implementation.

(from left) PAGCOR Assistant Vice Presidents Maricar Bautista and Myrna Reyes and Director Eric Nuguid received the   Gold Quill Award from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in Toronto, Canada last June 9, 2014. The state-owned gaming firm won the Gold Quill for its exemplary PR and business communication campaign for PAGCOR’s “Matuwid na Daan sa Silid-Aralan” (Building Schools Through Good Governance) project. Courtesy of Pagcor

“Winners of the Gold Quill Award (including Pagcor) demonstrate that their work is aligned with business needs. Their audience characteristics are clearly described, objectives are meaningful and measurable, and results of their campaign demonstrate that the work they did made a difference for their organization and stakeholders,” Hamilton-Attwell said.

Meantime, Robin McCasland, who is IABC’s international chair, said the783 entries all over the world were “assessed, evaluated and subjected to scrutiny” by a Global Blue Ribbon Panel of 123 evaluators worldwide. There were four different divisions, namely Communication Research Management, Communication Management, Communication Skills, and Communication Training and Education.

“We thank all our evaluators for helping us screen hundreds of entries. Each entry was reviewed for two hours.  All in all, our evaluators spent 1,958 hoaurs in screening all these entries. And they all did this for free,” McCasland said.

After the stringent screening process, only 281 entries won the Gold Quill Award for 2014–108 entries won the Award of Excellence while 173 received Merit Awards.

Other winning entries came from the following countries–136 from the US, 79 from Canada, 13 from South Africa, 12 from Australia, eight from the UK, six from New Zealand, six from Russia, two from Switzerland, two from Italy, one from Botswana, and one from Singapore.