NAGA CITY, May 30 (PIA) - Stories that tell tales of the relevance of agriculture to the lives of the people and captivating photos that encapsulate the significance of the land to the populace are the focus of the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards (BLAJA) 2014 as it invites anew more writers and photographers to join the awards program.

This was bared Tuesday by Monette Quioque, Executive Director of The Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards during the press briefing held at Villa Caceres here Wednesday with invited members of Camarines Sur media coming from print, broadcast and television.

At stake this year are Agriculture Story of the Year, Agriculture Photo of the Year, Tobacco Story of the Year, Best Television Program or segment, Best National News Story, Best Regional News Story, Best National Feature Story, Best Regional Feature Story and Best Radio Program or segment.

“We have ten prizes at stake this year. You can send your entries either via courier of by simply logging on to our website- www.thebrightleafawards.com where there are downloadable forms or you can email your entries to our secretariat at secretariat@thebrightleafawards.com. You can submit as many entries as you can but no story can be submitted in more than one category,”  Quioque stated before the members of the press.

The organizers will also give the Oriental Leaf Award to those who have won a Bright Leaf Award in any category for five consecutive years.  One of the privileges of the awardee is his or her inclusion in the list of other awardees as Bright Leaf Hall of Famers.

To qualify, submitted stories and photos should be aired and published respectively between September 1, 2013 to August 31,2014.

The competition is open to all professional and certified broadcast journalists who are 18 years old and above. Free lancers are also qualified to join as long as their works are published or aired in a media entity.

Now on their 8th year, the Bright Leaf Awards wishes to invite more practitioners to be a part of their aggressive campaign to promote agriculture stories that will sow the seeds of inspiration among our farmers and other stakeholders.

In an interview, Didet Danguilan, Project Head of Bright Leaf Agricuture Jounalism Awards stated that they are conducting the Bright Leaf roadshow basically to raise the awareness of the people about the inspiring stories pertaining to agriculture.

“We want to reach out to more new places that we haven't visited yet so more people will be aware about the bright leaf awards and then they would be interested to send entries,” Danguilan said.

She reiterated that this is also the best way to acknowledge the efforts of journalists around the globe who are their main partner in bringing to the forefront the many issues concerning agriculture like safety issues, crop sustainability and the like.

Winners of the Agriculture Story of the Year, Tobacco Story of the Year, Agriculture Photo of the Year and Tobacco Photo of the Year will bring home a total cash of P50,000.00, an iPad, Bright Leaf Awards trophy and an Asian trip.  Also at stake for the Best Television Program or Segment and Best Radio Program or Segment is P50,000.00 plus a certificate of recognition.

For the Print category, winners the Best National News Story, Best Regional News Story, Best National Feature Story and Best Regional Feature Story will receive P20,000.00 and a Certificate of Recognition.

Oriental Awardee will receive an iPad plus trophy.

Submission of entries started on May 5 and will be until September 10, 2014.  (MAL/LSM-PIA5/CamSur)

- See more at: http://r05.pia.gov.ph/index.php?article=861401419732#sthash.ESTg854g.dpuf

THE Bright Leaf Awards, given to the most outstanding and relevant agriculture stories in print, radio, and television, is now accepting entries until September 10, 2014.

Bright Leaf held its roadshow last May 23 at Star Plaza, Dagupan City to promote the competition and encourage more entries.

Established in 2007, the award-giving body honors the best features on agricultural issues and best farming practices on environmental safety and crop sustainability.

In a statement, Didet Danguilan, project head of the Bright Leaf Awards, urged all local journalists to join the competition.

She remarked, “We want to highlight the stories that enlighten and inspire our countrymen. This is even more important now because of the recent typhoons and earthquakes that have greatly made an impact in the agriculture industry.”

The categories for the Bright Leaf Awards are: Agriculture Story of the Year; Agriculture Photo of the Year; Tobacco Story of the Year; Tobacco Photo of the Year; Best Television Program or Segment; Best Radio Program or Segment; Best National News Story; Best Regional News Story; Best National Feature Story; Best Regional Feature Story; and the Oriental Leaf Award.

The Oriental Leaf Award is a special award given to those who have won a Bright Leaf Award in any category for five consecutive years.

For more information, contact the Bright Leaf Awards Secretariat at e-mail secretariat@thebrightleafawards.com or call: (02) 697-8110, 0915-550-8301 or 0918-413-0797.

On April 16, the 2014 Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards kicked off this year’s roadshow with a visit to Lucena City.  This is the first time that the competition was presented to Southern Tagalog journalists. The Bright Leaf team personally invited members of the local media to join and submit their entries.  The region’s print, TV, radio and photo journalists  eagerly listened to the presentation and asked questions and clarified any concerns they may have.

Cebu City was the second stop in the Bright Leaf roadshow.  Held at The Henry Hotel on May 8,  it was also a first for Bright Leaf in  Cebu.  This year’s competition targets to bring the project to more provinces and cities not yet visited in the past seven years of Bright Leaf.   All the attendees listened intently as host Arney Nucum and Bright Leaf Project Head, Didet Danguilan discussed the history, categories, prizes, and other details of the competition.   Editors and reporters of the major news agencies in the city attended as well as representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Philippine Information Agency and Department of Environment and Natural Resources who are involved in their respective agency’s magazines.

Next stop on the roadshow map was Davao City on May 14.   A short video that offers a glimpse into the eight year history of the Bright Leaf Awards welcomed the attendees as they arrived at the venue.  This was the second time that the roadshow was held at the chic White House fusion restaurant. Just like the Lucena and Cebu events, the media attendees fielded queries on the process of joining, topics that they would write, and they sought clarification on the technical requirements when submitting an entry. The number of media attendees doubled this year from last year’s roadshow. In their midst were winners in the 2013 Bright Leaf – Kenneth Bajo and Karla Stefan Singson for their Kakao Eskwela  television program. They won the “ Best Agriculture TV Program/Segment.”  Mindanao had another winner last year , Romer Sarmiento, who won “Best Agriculture News Story (Regional)” for his article Farmers in Region 12 urged to plant organic rice for foreign markets, which was published in Minda News.

The Lucena, Cebu and Davao roadshows were well-attended. It is indeed exciting times ahead for the journalists as they prepare to work on their entries.

CEBU, Philippines - To encourage more participants from Cebu and Central Visayas, the organizers of the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards yesterday dropped by Cebu for a road show to announce that they have started accepting entries since May 5.

“We decided to bring the road show to Cebu because mas center siya. Mas maraming media agency and outlets dito. We wanted to invite more journalists so we said ‘why not visit Cebu’?” said Didet Danguilan of Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corporation.

Danguilan, who heads the Public Affairs and Communication Executive Corporate Affairs of PMFTC which created the Bright Leaf, said that they noticed less number of entries from areas which they have not visited to personally urge local media practitioners to submit entries.

This year, already the eighth installment, the road show included Cebu, Bohol, Davao, Baguio, Dagupan, and Naga, among others.

“We want to put agriculture in the map,” said Danguilan, project manager of the Bright Leaf Awards.

The Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards is open to print, TV, and radio journalists of legal age with published outputs from September 1, 2013 until August 31, 2014.

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The major awards to be given are Agriculture Story of  the Year, Agriculture Photo of the Year, Tobacco Story of the Year, and Tobacco Photo of the Year.

Winners of the major awards will receive P50,000, an Asian trip, an iPad, and a trophy.

Other categories include Best Television Program or Segment, Best Radio Program or Segment with the prize of P50,000 and a certificate of recognition.

For the Best National News Story, Best Regional News Story, Best National Feature Story, Best Regional Feature News Story, the winners will get P20,000 and a certificate of recognition.

A special award, the Oriental Leaf, will be given to those who won five times, consecutively, in any of the categories and will be part of the Bright Leaf Hall of Fame.

Entries must be submitted on or before September 10 and may be in English, Filipino or any dialect but an English translation is required for entries in local dialect.

Subject of the submitted published entry must revolve around agriculture and related issues.

Last year, around 1, 500 entries were received and Danguilan said that they will be expecting more entries after they visit more places around the country.

A media practitioner can only enter one topic in a category and will only win in a single category.

Entry requirements are available at their website http://www.thebrightleafawards.com and submission of entries may either be online via secretariat@brightleafawards.com or via courier by sending hard copies of the requirements to Bright Leaf Awards 2014, Juicebox Shop Inc., L29 Joy Nostalg Centre, 17 ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City 1600.

AGRIBUSINESS ON THE SPOTLIGHT

The 2014 Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards (BLAJA) is open for entries starting today.  This annual competition for the finest reports and photos on the agribusiness sector is now on its eighth edition.  It showcases the most outstanding and relevant agri-related stories in print, radio and television.

Due to my advocacy on agri-business reforms, I was invited to be part of the board of judges for the 2013 BLAJA competition.  Last year’s major winners were veteran journalists Fermin Diaz and Teddy Molina, photojournalists David Leprozo Jr. and Mauricio Victa.  Their rewards included cash prizes and a trip to Bali, Indonesia with members of the press.  Only Filipino professionals with entries published or aired between Sept. 2, 2013 and Aug. 31, 2014 are eligible to join.  For more information, e-mail secretariat@thebrightleafawards.com or call (632) 697-8110.  It’s time to harvest the cream of the crop!

Whenever privileged with a visit to Bali, one can’t say he/she’s been there /done that without having fondled a glass bottle or cold can of Bir Bintang. Literally meaning Star Beer, it’s a pilsner of 4.7 percent alcohol styled as an American pale lager, with a malt and hop flavor.

The green bottle resembles a Heineken bottle, with a red star (bintang) that’s exactly the same as that on Heineken. The original brewery in Suribaya dates back to 1929 when the Dutch still ruled the islands. Bintang Beer won a gold medal at the 2011 Brewing Industry International Awards in its alcohol volume category.

In Bali, the price for a regular bottle can range from 15,000 rupiah in a supermarket to as much as Rp. 60,000 in bars and hotel restos. That’s about P65 at the low end, quite steep compared to our San Miguel if purchased in Manila.

On Kuta Beach, San Mig has a heavy presence, manifested by rows of large red umbrellas with its name and logo, providing shade to groups of locals and tourists chilling out all day away from the surf. San Mig sells even higher than Bintang in Bali, but appears to be popular among Western visitors.

Another Indonesian beer, Bali Hai, is cheaper but weaker. It’s passed off as a local beer but is actually brewed in Jakarta, and is now sold all over Indonesia after its introduction in Bali.

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The fattened luggage I brought home included a couple of bottles each of Bintang and Bali Hai, along with well over a dozen specimens of Bintang muscle tees, T-shirts and shorts. The Bintang tee is probably Bali’s best-selling souvenir item, even more so than sarongs and sashes, batik cloth, and carved wooden items from Ganeshes and Buddhas to smooth or painted penises that serve as bottle openers, primarily.

Well, I got those, too, since my constituency ranges from Zen navel-gazers and elephant worshippers to homoerotic barflies.

Our group that was blessed with the four-day Bali jaunt over a week ago was actually given half of that time as free days, meaning to each his/her own quota of hours for shopping, if not tanning on the beach or at hotel poolside. And even when we were on official tour, that primary activity wasn’t put on hold. Bali is a small beer and a small shop paradise.

Thanks to PMFTC, Inc. which sponsored the 7th Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards for which I served as a judge, I got to revisit Ubud, the arts and spiritual center that ranks high among the villages in the island of Bali that are a must, other than Denpasar with its central Kuta district.

After delighting in the Blanco Rennaissance Museum with its art galleries and gardens that were all fabulous, our group of BLAJA winners and media agreed to forego a couple of planned stops in our road tour in favor of almost three hours of individual foirays at the central market.

That meant buys of vanilla pods, cinnamon bark and ref magnets, thumb pianos and small drums, Aladdin pants and pantaloons, batik robes and shirts, ceramic ware, and yes, Bintang tees and Bali coffee. What I got of the latter, expertly eschewing the overrated and overpriced Luwak coffee (the more famous and even more high-priced counterpart to our Alamid or civet cat coffee), were the Toraja and Bali labels.

I asked around for the vaunted Flores, which had been recommended by an artist-friend whose coffee tastes I trusted, but was told that it wasn’t available in that market. Oh well. We treated ourselves to streetside gelato in all flavors instead, to counterpoint the beads of sweat we had gained from the bargain binge, before we reboarded our airconned bus.

Our guide Putu took us temple-hopping all of the next day. First up was Taman Ayun, the Royal Temple of Mengwi. Built in 1634 by a king of the Mengwi dynasty, the impressive complex stands on an island in a river, with its inner temple featuring a row of seven towering, thatch-roofed pagodas surrounded by a moat. The Balinese name Pura Taman Ayun means “Garden Temple in the Water.”

From the comfort of our touring bus that made its way upland, we only had glimpses of Bedugul, a pleasant mountain village off Lake Bratan, with roadside stands offering fresh strawberries and passion fruit.

We headed directly to the Ulun Danu Balinese Hindu Temple, one of Bali’s prettiest, located at the Candi Kuning countryside about 50 kilometers north of Denpasar. It is set at lakeside, with a scenic view of the placid lake and surrounding misty hills. Walking along the lakeshore and gardens, for once we enjoyed balmy weather, as we had escaped the lowland heat and humidity.

A sudden downpour was also welcomed, since it gave us the opportunity to try our hand and arm at intimate group selfies under one rented orange umbrella.

The third and last temple we visited was the very popular Pura Tanah Lot, one of Bali’s many sea temples that are meant to honor the gods and goddesses of the ocean. A sacred site revered by Balinese Hindus, the temple that stands on a rock islet close to shore is one of six cardinal temples strung out along the west coast.

Hordes of tourists make it here daily, with sundown as the favored time for magic-hoiur selfies with the temple on a rock and the sea beyond as a dramatic backgrounhopping stalksd.

We couldn’t wait for that hour, however, as we still had to course down for over an hour to get to our planned venue for fancy dinner. Still, the innumerable souvenir stalls leading to and from the sea temple filled up many more minutes of Imeldific blitz shopping.

Our formal dinner was at Metis Restaurant in the Seminyak district favored by the more upscale foreign expats. Classic French, the unforgettable fare was. Seared in mind is the warm seared sea scallops as intro course, and after everything else, the caramel millefeuille. Ah, to meditate for!

Many other memories will continue to regale us, including a ride on a horse-drawn carriage much like Dumaguete’s tartanilla, through narrow streets and alleys lined with shopping stalls and bars, all the way to Kuta Square because our date wanted to try Balinese pizza at Angels Essence restaurant.

All in all, the four-day experience on the island of the gods may be said to be such: partaking of the essence of angels.

DAGUPAN CITY – The best published agriculture stories and photos as well as broadcast reports of media practitioners in the country are now accepted in the 8th Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards.

The Bright Leaf Awards are given to the most outstanding and relevant agriculture stories in print, radio, and television. It will also honor the most compelling photos that capture the essence of tobacco farming and the agriculture industry.

In a statement, Didet Danguilan, project head of the Bright Leaf Awards, encourages all professional Filipino journalists residing in the Philippines to join the competition as their way of sharing the successes of farmers through their stories – in whatever medium – to the public.

“Their stories need to be seen, heard and appreciated. The Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards is the best way to achieve that,” she said.

“We want to highlight the stories that enlighten and inspire our countrymen. This is even more important now because of the recent typhoons and earthquakes that have greatly made an impact in the agriculture industry,” added Danguilan.

She said that this is one way to provide some light in what was a very dark time for the Filipino farmer.

In order to collect a larger crop of entries in this year’s competition, the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards Team is holding a series of roadshows to reach out to tri-media practitioners from more agricultural provinces to invite them to submit their articles and photos.

In Pangasinan, a roadshow is scheduled in Dagupan City on Tuesday, April 29.

This event will provide a venue for the discussion and clarification of all the details regarding the competition.

The categories for the Bright Leaf Awards are: Agriculture Story of the Year; Agriculture Photo of the Year; Tobacco Story of the Year; Tobacco Photo of the Year; Best Television Program or Segment; Best Radio Program or Segment; Best National News Story; Best Regional News Story; Best National Feature Story; Best Regional Feature Story; and the Oriental Leaf Award.

The Oriental Leaf Award is a special award given to those who have won a Bright Leaf Award in any category for five consecutive years. The Oriental Leaf Awardees become part of an elite group of individuals that comprise the Bright Leaf Hall of Fame.