The following journalists received prizes in several media categories of the 11th Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards at Fairmont Hotel on November 17:

Agriculture Story of the Year — “Cacao Special” by Karren Montejo of Agri Tayo Dito ABSCBN Regional; Tobacco Story of the Year — “Gourmet oil, biodiesel and organic pesticide: The Future of Processed Tobacco Products” by Ian Flora Ocampo of SunStar Pampanga; Agriculture Photo of the Year — “Catch of the Day” by Erwin Mascariñas for SunStar Cagayan de Oro; Tobacco Photo of the Year — “Drying Tobacco” by Laila Austria of Business Mirror;

Best Agriculture TV Program/Segement — “Farm Mechanization Special” by Karren Montejo; Best Agriculture Radio Program/Segment — “Information Dissemination on Avian Flu Outbreak at San Luis, Pampanga” by the DA Regional Field Office 3 for MANA: Maunlad Na Agrikultura sa Nayon Magagri Tayo DWRW 95.1 FM Pampanga; Best Agriculture News Story National — “PHL retraces journey toward food security” by Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas of Business Mirror; Best Agriculture New Story Regional — “Pitch for Phl rice production in sufficiency and competitiveness” by Anselmo Roque of Punto Central Luzon; Best Agriculture Feature Story National — “Can 13yearold manual save PHL from bird flu?” by Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas; and Best Agriculture Feature Story of the Year — “Cinderella Man” by John Glen Sarol, from Fears to Cheers Book August 2017 by PhilRiceJICA.

As chair of this year’s BLAJA judges, I delivered the following speech (excerpted here):

Guest of Honor Senator Cynthia Villar, PMFTC President Roman Militsyn, External Communications Director Varinia Elero Tinga, Corporate Affairs Director Richard James, Head of Corporate Communications Dave Gomez, Communications Manager Didet Danguilan, fellow judges, this year’s Bright Leaf Agricultural Journalism Awards winners, ladies and gentlemen…

It’s been some eight years since I first became aware of PMFTC’s Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards, and started to serve among the judges in the annual contest. It’s been a merry ride since, and this year it became a joyful one to realize that the PMFTC has finally seen fit to elevate me to the even more exalted position of chairing the board of judges.

I hope this doesn’t mean that I’ve been raised to my level of maximum incompetence, and that next year I might have to settle down to earth as a distant observer of these proceedings.

Cliché as it may sound, it’s been an honor and a privilege to be associated with Bright Leaf. As a professional writer, essentially a creative one but who also continues to practice journalism, I can say with all sincerity that the Bright Leaf contest has been a most exemplary undertaking, and the fact that ithas gone on for 11 years makes it even more so.

Given all the decades I’ve been in the business of writing, and receiving awards myself, it becomes part of the tour of duty: serving as a judge in writing contests.

I’ve judged competitions involving various genres: fiction and poetry for the Carlos Palanca Awards, the Philippines Graphic magazine literary awards, university writing competitions including for the essay, lifestyle journalism for publications, screenwriting and travelwriting contests, and submissions for literary workshops.

But the Bright Leaf competition has been something else. Beyond involving the crafting of words, sentences and paragraphs, and judiciously assembling research facts and interviews, writing about the myriad aspects of agriculture necessarily addresses the larger sphere of nationbuilding — indeed, of productive contribution to our entire planet.

The importance of agriculture appears to escape public attention beyond the fundamentals, which explains why not too many regular publications allow for frequent space for agriculture journalism. But certainly, a higher degree of attention to the subject is mandatory for any modern nation that respects and fulfills its responsibilities to its people.

The Bright Leaf has taken positive steps in this direction by honoring agriculture journalists and photographers. The awards embrace the full scope of media, with the variety of categories allowing for comprehensive coverage of agriculture topics.

I recall one particularly memorable piece of feature writing, titled “The Convent Gardens: Nuns as Urban Farmers,” on the Benedictine Sisters in Baguio City raising profitable gardens, which preliminarily won in the Feature Story – Regional category, and was proclaimed Agriculture Story of the Year. That was in 2012, if I recall right. The lady writer’s choice of topic, manner of journalistic documentation, and prose style all contributed to its choice as top story of the year.

Since then, I have personally noted that the quality of the competition has risen each year, so that the conduct of judging the entries has become even more difficult.

No doubt this has been the happy result of the series of regional roadshows supervised by PMFTC Communications Manager Didet Danguilan, which are mounted earlier in the year as a way of inviting journalists from all over the archipelago to try their hand in a topcaliber writing competition.

This year, a total of 612 entries were submitted, 247 of which qualified for Phase 1 of the judging, and which in turn were further pruned down to 55 entries that were assessed in Phase 2 judging. Such has been the exacting methodology that confirms and assures the high standards set for the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards.

We must thank the initial screeners of the submitted entries, and the Phase 1 roster of judges that included Chito Lozada, deputy editor of The Daily Tribune; Albert Gamboa, business columnist of Business World; Marie Aubrey Villaceran, Assistant Profesor of UP Diliman; Mandy Navasero, founder & CEO of Mandy Navasero PhotoPRo Studio; Jose Pablo Salud, editorinchief of Philippines Graphic magazine; Pennie dela Cruz, desk editor of Philippine Daily Inquirer; and Elenia Pernia, Dean of the College of Mass Communication, UP Diliman.

The Phase 2 judges were Jake Maderazo, station manager of DZIQ; Rina Jimenez David, columnist of Philippine Daily Inquirer; Dr. Roland Dy, executive director of UA&P Center for Food and Agribusiness; Remar Zamora, chief of the photo section of Philippine Daily Inquirer; and yours truly. We were joined in the final phase of judging by Phase 1 judges Ms. Navasero, Ms. Villaceran, and Mr. Gamboa.

This year, as a judge, one comes away not only with an appreciation of the state of agriculture journalism in our country, but as always, with fresh knowledge of current developments. As with previous years, we gain marvelous information beyond the usual reasons why we still can’t gain selfsufficiency in rice production.

Instead, we pick up on quaint or curious stuff that transcends trivia — on the bounty provided by cacao in Mindanao, and how in the north, processed tobacco products can include gourmet oil, biodiesel and organic pesticide.

Then too, we learn about carabao raising, potential tariffs on sisig and French fries, the threat of food poisoning from salmonella, the push for organic farming in the Negros Island Ragion, “green” methods for breeding goats in Northern Cotabato, the ecologically friendly bamboo charcoal being produced in Iloilo not only for fuel but as natural fertilizer, pesticide, deodorizer, and as a soap ingredient, profitable sampaguita cultivation in Pangasinan, and in the same province, our marine scientists’ efforts to save the taklobo or giant clams from extinction.

All this makes for fascinating reading. And that is primarily what the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards triumphs in: opening up many new doors to allow the bright light of knowledge to shine through.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this continuing, commendable undertaking.

CFO as CEO's alter ego

Business World

By: J. Albert Gamboa

MAKATI CITY SunStar Pampanga’s multi-awarded reporter Ian Ocampo Flora won yet another award in the 11th Bright Leaf Journalism Awards 2017 for Tobacco Story of the Year.

This is Flora’s fourth award from the award body as he already won in the 7th Bright Leaf Journalism Awards 2013 for Best Agriculture Feature Story and Tobacco Story of the Year for the 9th Bright Leaf Journalism Awards and 10th Bright Leaf Journalism Awards in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Flora is one award short to qualify for the Oriental Leaf Award and become part of the Bright Leaf Hall of Fame. His entry this year titled “Gourmet Oil, Bio diesel and Organic Pesticide: The Future of Processed Tobacco” won for Flora the Tobacco Story of Year Category.

Flora was awarded a trophy, Ipad and cash prize at the Fairmont Hotel in Makati City over the weekend. The event was attended by Bright Leaf winners and mass media practitioners from Metro Manila and other provinces with Senator Cynthia Villar as guest speaker.

Flora will join other winners in an Asian trip next year as part of the prize for the award.

Launched in 2007, the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards is the premier competition that seeks out the most important agriculture stories and honors the journalists behind them. It is a competition for published stories, radio segments, television features, and photographs, which created awareness on the most current agricultural issues and the best farming practices on environmental care, safety, and crop sustainability.

Flora’s article discusses the bright prospects for processing tobacco into gourmet oil for food consumption and bio diesel as alternative and environment friendly alternative car fuel. The article also discusses the use of tobacco dust as farm organic pesticide and the effects that these products would have on farmers and the industry.

Flora said that the award inspires him to do more in terms of community reporting.

Flora has been the recipient of recognitions and citations from non-government organizations, like Quota and Rotary, for his community reporting.

lora was awarded with the Provincial Board (PB) Resolution 3115 in 2013 and Resolution 4109 for his contributions to community journalism.

Aside from the PB citation, Flora was also given a similar recognition by the Municipal Council of Sta. Rita and the Municipal Government of Porac for his community reporting.

Aside from being a local reporter, Flora is also a college professor and book editor. Flora is a graduate of AB Communication Arts from Holy Angel University and has a Masters Degree in English Language and Literature Teaching. He is currently finishing his studies for a Doctorate Degree in Educational Management. Aside from being a reporter, Flora is SunStar Pampanga’s resident society columnist covering topics on food, travel, community events and culture. (JTD)

Sen. Cynthia Villar, who chairs the Senate committee on agriculture, sounded off an “old” and frequently aired message when she was the guest of honor at the 11th Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards last Friday.

As she has done repeatedly in forums where she’s asked to speak on agriculture, the senator talked about the need for more support from everybody — the government, private sector and yes, the media — to help the country’s farmers and fisherfolk. Despite the crucial role they play in providing for our food and answering our basic needs, farmers and fishers, said Villar, get little love from the public.

Farmers and fisherfolk are among the poorest of Filipinos, she said, with 22 percent living below the poverty line. Coconut farmers are deemed the poorest, earning a mere P1,500 a month. On average, Villar added, those in the agricultural sector earn P4,500 a month, that is, when typhoons, floods and other natural disasters don’t lay waste to the fruits of their labor.

This is why, said the senator, she has been hard at work to pass laws that address the basic problems of the agriculture sector, including putting curbs on unregulated fishing (“Our oceans will be virtual deserts by 2050 if we don’t do anything,” she told the audience), extending the period of the agricultural competitive funds, developing farm tourism projects, as well as developing the coconut industry.

Villar also thanked not just the journalists and broadcasters who took part in the Bright Leaf competition, but the entire media industry for “increasing awareness of the plight of farmers and fisherfolk.”

Directly and indirectly, she said, such coverage promotes the development of the sector.

The Bright Leaf awards are sponsored by cigarette manufacturer PMFTC (joint-venture company between Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing Inc. and Fortune Tobacco Corp.) to promote the coverage and discussion in the media of issues related to the agriculture sector, not just the tobacco industry. This year’s awards, the 11th year these have been handed out, were scrutinized by a panel of judges headed by Krip Yuson, who writes a column for the Philippine Star and is a noted fictionist and essayist. The other judges for the preliminary phase were Chito Lozada of the Daily Tribune, Albert Gamboa of BusinessWorld, Marie Aubrey Villaceran of UP Diliman, photographer Mandy Navasero, Jose Pablo Salud of Graphic magazine, Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz of the Inquirer; and Elena Pernia, dean of UP College of Mass Communications.

Judges for the second phase were Jake Maderazo of dzIQ, Dr. Roland Dy of UA&P; Remar Zamora, chief photographer of the Inquirer, and this columnist.

Significantly, a TV feature on the country’s burgeoning cacao industry won “Story of the Year,” the first time a TV show gained the distinction in awards dominated previously by print. Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas of Business Mirror won twice for a feature story and a news story, also a first for Bright Leaf. My personal congratulations, too, to Anselmo Roque, a former Inquirer correspondent, for his win in the news category published in a provincial paper.

The Bright Leaf awards demonstrate, too, the point raised by Anika Dauden of the BPI Foundation who said one of the main advocacies of the foundation is to make farmers and fisherfolk “bankable.”

One of the major issues facing those in agriculture, said Dauden, is lack of credit facilities since they seldom have access to large financial institutions. Besides which, she added, rural folk are “intimidated” by a bank like BPI. Thus, the thrust of the foundation is to bring together farmers and bankers to overcome the long-standing barriers to credit for the agricultural sector.

But it will take time to effect such a major change, said Dauden, who estimates that the “first loan to an individual farmer might be handed out two years from now.”

THE BusinessMirror, the country’s leading business newspaper, made history last Friday.

For the first time, the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards honored a journalist in two of its national categories.

It was also the first time for the BusinessMirror and for one of its youngest reporters Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas. The 21-year-old Arcalas bagged the Best Agriculture Feature Story (National) of the year and Best Agriculture News Story (National) of the year at the 11th Bright Leaf Awards.

This is the first time the Feature and News Stories of the Year were won by a single news outfit and a reporter since Bright Leaf began in 2007.

The article that won Arcalas a Best Agriculture News Story was his story, titled “PHL retraces journey toward food security.”

The story unfolded in four parts the country’s two-decade struggle to achieve rice self-sufficiency. The series was published from January 16 to 19 this year.

Arcalas’s three-part story, titled “Can 13-year-old manual save PHL from bird flu?” won for him the Best Agriculture Feature Story this year.

The piece focused on the country’s efforts to curb the bird-flu outbreak using its 13-year-old Avian Influenza Protection Program Manual of Procedures.

Arcalas, who is assigned to cover the agriculture beat, is also one of the youngest reporters to win at the Bright Leaf Awards. He submitted his entries while en route to Brazil to cover the Southern American country’s meat sector upon the invitation of its industry association.

“This year, as a judge, one comes away not only with an appreciation of the state of agriculture journalism in our country but, as always, with fresh knowledge of current developments,” literary writer and Philippine Star columnist Krip Yuson said in his speech at the Fairmont Hotel in Makati City. Yuson is the head of the panel of judges for this year’s Bright Leaf Awards.

“All this makes for fascinating reading. And that is primarily what the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards triumphs in: opening up many new doors to allow the bright light of knowledge to shine through,” he added. Yuson and the judges also honored BusinessMirror’s Tarlac-based photographer Laila Austria who won the Tobacco Photo of the Year for her entry, titled “Drying Tobacco,” which was published in May.

Three of her entries were shortlisted in two categories, including  Agriculture Photo of the Year.  This was the second year Austria joined the Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards.

This year’s winners also included Karren Montejo of ABS-CBN Davao for the Agriculture Story of the Year; Anselmo Roque of Punto Central Luzon for Best Agriculture News Story (Regional); John Glen Sarol of Philippine Rice Research Institute, Best Agriculture Feature Story; and Erwin Mascarinas of SunStar Cagayan de Oro, Agriculture Photo of the Year.

In broadcasting, Bright Leaf winners this year included DWRW 95.1 FM Pampanga as Best Agriculture Radio Program/Segment and ABS-CBN Regional as Best Agriculture TV Program/Segment.

“The importance of agriculture appears to escape public attention beyond the fundamentals, which explains why not too many regular publications allow for frequent space for agriculture journalism,” Yuson said. “But certainly, a higher degree of attention to the subject is mandatory for any modern nation that respects and fulfills its responsibilities to its people.”

Member of the panel of judges were Chito Lozada, deputy editor of The Daily Tribune; Albert Gamboa, business columnist of BusinessWorld; Marie Aubrey J. Villaceran, assistant professor of the University of the Philippines Diliman; Mandy Navasero, founder and CEO of Mandy Navasero PhotoPRO Studio; Jose Pablo Salud, editor in chief of the Philippines Graphic; and Pennie de la Cruz, desk editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The list of judges also included Dr. Elenia Pernia, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communications; Jake Maderazo, station manager of DZIQ; Rina Jimenez- David, columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer; Dr. Roland Dy, executive director of the University of Asia and the Pacific Center for Food and Agribusiness; and Remar Zamora, chief of the Photo Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The Bright Leaf Agriculture Journalism Awards was launched by Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing Inc. (PMPMI). The awards is now being given by the PMFTC Inc., the company created in 2010 through the merger of the PMPMI and Fortune Tobacco Corp.

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Cynthia Villar pressed anew yesterday for the passage of the bill creating the Department of Migration and Development to protect the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families in the country.

Villar made the call after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations earlier forged in Manila theASEAN Consensus on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers.

She said Senate Bill 146 or the proposed “Department of Migration and Development Act of 2016” remains pending in the committee on labor and employment, chaired by Sen. Joel Villanueva.

“Our OFWs give as much as $50 billion annually, no other sector gives our economy that much,” Villar told dzBB. She said the creation of the department will not cost the government much as existing agencies involved in OFW affairs, such as those embedded in the Departments of Labor and Employment; Foreign Affairs; and the Office of the President—14 in all—will be merged.

There are an estimated 12 million OFWs.

Under the bill authored by Villar, the department shall develop, implement and improve coordination with other countries with the presence of Filipinos and monitor foreign developments to ensure the most reasonable working conditions for the OFWs and create a proactive approach in providing assistance to them especially in times of war and civil unrest, whether potential or apparent.

It will also promote, develop and monitor the continuing education, training and qualification, availability and deployment of OFWs and coordinate with concerned agencies in the training of overseas Filipinos to improve their competitiveness.

The bill also seeks to create the P1-billion Special Assistance Revolving Fund for Filipino Migrants, including both documented and undocumented. It will be used for emergency repatriation; medical expenses; immigration penalties; legal assistance; payment of blood money; humanitarian assistance to families left behind; scholarships for children of Filipinos overseas; maintenance and operational expenses including capital outlay for the establishment of One-Stop Migrant Processing and Assistance Centers.