2010 Burgos Awards announced
(Editha Burgos, wife of the late press freedom advocate Jose Burgos, at the awards ceremony)
Articles about flood-tolerant rice and a worm-resistant variety of eggplant are among those were recognized in the 2010 Jose Burgos Awards for Biotech Journalism.
Malaya’s Paul Icamina won the first prize in the news category for the article “Pinoy Savants Developing Flood-tolerant Rice”. Icamina reported on a rice variety that can grow even when submerged in water for a long period. This variety will help produce a better yield for the 300,000 hectares of flood-prone rice fields.
Business Mirror reporters Lyn Resurreccion and Jennifer Ng meanwhile won the second and third prize, respectively. Resurreccion wrote about how a genetically modified rice variety of rice can boost local rice supply while Ng wrote about an eggplant variety that increases yield by about three-fold.
Helen Flores of The Philippine Star received a special citation for an article on developing six high-yielding varieties of corn.
Resureccion also won first prize in the business category for her article on varieties of eggplant resistant to the fruit and shoot borer. The fruit and shoot borer is considered to be the most damaging pest for eggplants. Anjo Alimario, also of the Mirror, won for the article “RP Needs Strong Animal Biotech Program”. The Star’s Rudy Fernandez won for his article “GM corn production now a multibillion-peso Industry”.
The Manila Bulletin won first prize in the institutional category. The Bulletin has regularly issued a supplement and a monthly magazine on the trends and issues in agriculture. Mirror took the second prize and Star, third.
Jose Burgos’ wife, Dr. Editha Burgos, presented the awards, with former broadcaster and Agham Party-list Rep. Angelo T. Palmones; Abraham Manalo, executive secretary of the Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines (BCP); and Dr. Aida Adalla of the Department of Agriculture (DA)’s Biotechnology Program Office.
Since 2006, the Jose Burgos Awards have recognized excellent and relevant reporting on biotechnology and its impact on Philippine agriculture. The award was organized to honor Burgos, a press freedom icon and publisher of We Forum and Ang Pahayagang Malaya.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by CMFR, Hector Bryant Macale. Hector Bryant Macale said: RT @cmfr: 2010 Burgos Awards winners announced: httpss://bit.ly/erEGoA […]