THE Jose G. Burgos Jr. Awards for Biotechnology Journalism recently celebrated its 13th anniversary at the Agriculltural Training Institute RDEC Training Hall in Quezon City.
For the Best News category, the news article “CA ruling stops imports of Bt talong, golden rice” written by Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas of the Philippine Star, won the top prize. Second prize in the same category went to veteran journalist Butch Fernandez of BusinessMirror for his article “Inefficiencies stunt growth of local corn sector–Villar.” The news article titled “Biz groups urge government to prioritize support for biotech crops” written by Louella Desiderio, also of the Philippine Star, bagged the third prize for the news category.
For the Features category, the first prize went to the article “Stopping GMO crops may cause ‘more harm than good’ – scientists” written by Jordeene Lagare and Kathleen De Villa of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Rainier Allan Ronda of the Philippine Star was awarded the second prize for his article, “Scientists hit CA ruling vs Bt eggplant, GMO.” The third prize winner of the same category was Alden Monzon for his article “Gov’t told: Genetically modified crops to feed population” published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Newspapers that published the most articles on biotechnology were also given recognition. The first prize went to the BusinessMirror, while Philippine Star and the Philippine Daily Inquirer got the second and third prizes, respectively.
Cash prizes and trophies were given to the news and feature category winners, while institutional winners received trophies. For bagging the first prize in the institutional category for several years now, BusinessMirror was awarded the Hall of Fame.
This year’s Board of Judges were comprised of Dr. Vivencio R. Mamaril, technical consultant of the Philippine Rubber Research Institute; Dr. Paul C. Limson, director of the DA- Biotechnology Program Office; and Dr. Rhodora R. Aldemita, executive director of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications Inc. and director of the Global Knowledge Center on Biotechnology.
