4th Plaridel journalism awards now accepting entries

Previous Plaridel Excellence in Filipino American Journalism awardees. PHOTO BY GARY DE GUZMAN

SAN FRANCISCO — The Philippine American Press Club USA, (PAPC) announced the opening of submissions to the Fourth Plaridel Excellence in Filipino American Journalism Awards, starting June 30 till August 15.

The Plaridel Awards is open to journalists whose articles/broadcast production saw print or were shown in a Filipino American-based media anywhere in the U.S. between June 1, 2014 to May 31, 2015.

Categories

Awards will be given to the best stories and articles that provide unique perspective on the issues and concerns of Filipino Americans.

Categories for print and online articles include Investigative Story, News Story, Personal Essay, Feature Writing, Profile Writing, Commentary or Editorial Essay, International Reporting; Entertainment, Food, and Sports Stories; and Youth Voice (age 16 – 26.)

For Broadcast TV- Community Reporting and Personality Profile.

For Radio: Community Programming.

And last but not least, Photojournalism and Tourism stories.

There is a maximum of two articles per category. Submissions must come from the journalists themselves and not the media organization.

This year’s awards will be held on Thursday, October 8, at the Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Center on Sutter Street in San Francisco.

Last year’s winners

Last year’s winners were: Best International Reporting/Astrid Barros/Positively Filipino; Entertainment Story/Mila de Guzman’s “Indie with a Mission”; Best Sports Story/Joseph Bautista of Escabo Daan Martial Arts with “A new path through Eskabo Daan”, Best Personal Story/Lotis Key’s “White men can’t jump start”, and Best Profile Writing/Titchie Tiongson with “The thoroughly modern Sofia de Veyra”.

Ken Kashiwahara, former ABC TV Anchor, won the Best Feature Writing Award with his piece “Ninoy’s Final Journey” published with the two year old e-zine Positively Filipino. Philippine News and The FilAm LA came second both winning two categories; Investigative or In-depth Story/Neil Gonzales’ “A Force in State’s Energy Battles Part 1 & II, and the Best Food Story/ Cherie Querol Moreno’s “Adobo may have French Roots”.

One-year-old online gazette, The FilAm L.A. won two categories, The Best Youth Voice/Lawrence Ochoa, “Somethings stand the test of time from the boomers to milliennials” and Best Tourism Feature Story/Cecile Ochoa with her article “ World Traveller Odette Ricasa: 247 countries and counting.”

Atty. Ted Laguatan, a columnist of Inquirer.net won the Best Commentary Category with his opinion piece “China’s military base in Philippine territory must absolutely be blocked.” Joseph Lariosa of Philippine Daily Mirror received the Best News Story with his article on “ CHP Report: Limo Fire an Accident.” Power ng Pinoy TV won the Plaridel for Best Television Community Reporting with their “Million People March” broadcast. Laurel Fantauzzo, won the President’s Choice award with her article on “How to survive a super typhoon: Batanes” which appeared on Buzzfeed.com.

In honor of Marcelo H. del Pilar

The Plaridel Awards was named in honor of Marcelo H. Del Pilar, a Filipino patriot, journalist and publisher who brought his craft and zeal as an expat in Europe in late 1800s. Plaridel was his pen name. Del Pilar was a prolific writer who kept his constituents abreast with the goings on in their expat community as well as in their homeland.

In him PAPC has found a hero – a person to emulate and an inspiration to Filipino writers and publishers everywhere who continue their journalistic aspirations and service to their constituents in the new land they now call home.

Esther Chavez, President of PAPC, said that the response of Filipino American journalists to the Plaridel Awards has been very encouraging. “We received submissions from all over the US and the number of articles submitted have quadrupled since the inception of the Plaridel Awards in 2012.”

The Plaridel awards was established to acknowledge and celebrate the contribution of outstanding writers and publishers in the Filipino American community, as they chronicle the lives and times of their compatriots, promote and share their culture and history, champion their causes and provide a venue where readers and listeners can voice their concerns, and ideas for the betterment of the community and society at large.

PAPC’s member publications are ABS-CBN, Asian Journal, Fil-Am Star, Filipino American Radio Network, Filipino Gazette, GMA Pinoy TV, Manila Mail, Inquirer.net, Philippine News, Philippine Headlines, Philippines Today, Positively Filipino, and Power ng Pinoy.

For more information, contact Esther Chavez, President, PAPC at [email protected] or Jojo Peralta, Executive Secretary at [email protected] Or visit www.papcusa.org

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