THE BusinessMirror and BusinessMirror’s science writer and photojournalist Stephanie Tumampos were among the big winners of the first-ever “Bantog Science for the People Awards” of the Department of Science and Technology-Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII) held at the PICC on September 28.
The BusinessMirror received the Bantog award for Best S&T Media Institutional Award for Print, while Tumampos won first prize in the Outstanding S&T Professional Media Practitioner Award for Print, which had a P100,000 cash reward. The newspaper, represented by Editor in Chief Lourdes M. Fernandez and Science Editor Lyn Resurreccion, and Tumampos received trophies based on a design by national artist, Abdulmari Imao.
“Bantog,” which means eminent in English, is the DOST’s way of recognizing prominent individuals who have raised the bar in promoting and communicating science to the public, DOST-STII Director Richard Burgos explained in his welcome remarks at the awarding rites.
The tagline, “Science for the People,” was adopted “because if we look at the laws that established the Department of Science and Technology, they boiled down the mandates of DOST into, simply, promoting science to the benefit of the people.”
Other winners of the Best S&T Institutional Award are DZEC Radyo Agila for Radio, Panahon TV for Television and GMA Social Media Section for the Cyber Press category.
For the Outstanding S&T Professional Media Practitioner Award for Print, Marid Agribusiness Digest’s Henrylito Tacio placed second and Malaya Business Insight’s Paul Icamina placed third. In the Television category, Connie Sison of GMA Network, Bettina Magsaysay of ABS-CBN and Michael Joe Delizo of ABS-CBN won first, second and third place, respectively.
Custer Deocaris, Josephine Agapito and Anabelle Surara, all from DZEC Radyo Agila, won the first, second and third place, respectively in the Radio category.
The winners of the Cyber Press category were Mikael Angelo Francisco of GMA News Online for first place, Ruby Shaira Panela from Rappler for second place and Angelica Yang, a freelance journalist, for third place. Another award in the regional level was given to Sun Star Pampanga’s Ian Flora as Outstanding Regional Media Practitioner.
DOST-STII also recognized their information officers with the Bantog Award for Outstanding S&T Information Officer Award: Maria Elena Talingdan of DOST National Research Council of the Philippines won first place, Hans Joshua Dantes of DOST Philippine Nuclear Research Institute placed second and Sheila Marie S. Claver of the DOST Cordillera Administrative Region placed third.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes