Entries being accepted for ‘Plaridel’ Fil-Am journalism awards

Last year’s Plaridel Awards winners. INQUIRER FILE

SAN FRANCISCO – Entries are being accepted from June 1 to August 1 for the Fifth Plaridel Awards, the Philippine American Press Club USA (PAPC) announced.

The Plaridel Excellence in Filipino American Journalism 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, 2015 to May 31, 2016.

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. Photojournalism and Tourism stories are also accepted. 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 Friday, October 7, at the Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Center on Sutter Street in San Francisco.

Last year’s Plaridel Awardees

Best International Reporting – Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, Positively Filipino “My Battle with Ebola”

Best Entertainment Story – Lisa Suguitan Melnick, Positively Filipino, “Maseg, an artistic Tempest”

Best Sports Story – Myles Garcia, Positively Filipino, “Before Elorde, Before Pacquiao…there was Luis Logan”

Best Food Story – Allyson Escobar, Asian Journal, “Cooking Hawaiian Style: The art of Island cuisine”

Best Youth Voice – Allyson Escobar, Asian Journal, Passion Planner: Creating your life journey in a notebook”

Best News Story – Allyson Escobar, Asian Journal, “Maj. Gen Taguba Shares “Unfiltered” version of Abu Graib investigation”

Best Personal Essay – Lotis Key, Positively Filipino, “Feeding my Fiipino”

Best Feature Story – Agnes Constante, Asian Jounal, Lovelyn Marquez Prueher, The First FilAm Teacher of the Year for California”

Best Profile Writing – Agnes Constante, “Carlene Bonnivier, Retracing her Filipino Roots and enriching cultural identity.”

Best In-Depth Story – Cecile Ochoa, Inquirer.net, “DACA, Confessions of a formerly undocumented youth”

Best Commentary – Emil Guillermo, Inquirer.net, “Are you Charlie Hebdo? Or ust Charlie Adobo?”

Best Tourism Feature Story – Christina Oriel, Asian Journal, Huma Island: An Island hideaway in the Tropical Paradise of Busuanga”

Best TV Community Reporting – Rommel Conclara, Balitang America/TFC, “Grandson and Grandma Create Memories through art”

Best TV Personality Profile – Henni Espinosa, Balitang America/TFC, “Pinoy Mortician”

The Robert Henry Memorial Award for Radio – Allan Alvarez, KPHI 96.7 FM

A round trip California-Manila economy ticket donated by Philippine Airlines was raffled to the The Plaridel winners, and the lucky Manila bound winner was Myles Garcia who confessed he hasn’t been home in 11 years.

Christina Oriel who won the Best Tourism Feature Story won a two-day stay at the new Hotel Centro in the island of Palawan, courtesy of Mango Tours.

2015 Plaridel Awards sponsors were PG&E, Philippine Air Lines, WesternUnion.com, Department of Tourism, San Francisco, Ramar Foods, Inquirer.net, Mango Tours, Mariluz Floral Design and friends.

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 overwhelming and gratifying. News reporting and articles submitted have greatly improved since the Plaridel Awards started in 2012.

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, Power ng Pinoy and The Islander

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