3 PDI writers win JASCOR awards

PDI’s Joel Nigos, Kenneth Del Rosario, Holcim PH president Ed Sahagun, PDI’s Mozart Pastrano (grand prize winner), Doris Dumlao-Abadilla and Corrie Narisma at the JASCOR awards night

THREE Philippine Daily Inquirer writers were honored for “outstanding reportage on sustainable construction” at the 2015 Journalism Awards for Sustainable Construction Reporting (JASCOR) organized by Holcim Philippines and the Philippine Press Institute (PPI).

PDI also received the JASCOR “Special Merit Award for Sustainable Construction Reporting,” given to the publication that garnered the most number of finalists in the competition. There were five reporters from national dailies honored at JASCOR along with five journalists handpicked for the community newspaper category during the awarding ceremonies held at Hotel Intercontinental in Makati on Oct. 29.

PDI’s Mozart Pastrano won the grand prize for the national daily category for his article “Strong, Cheap Homes for Yolanda victims” (Inquirer, Dec. 2, 2014). He was tied with Marilou Guieb, author of “The Maryknoll Nuns’ Earth House Provides Calm in a City of Chaos” (BusinessMirror, June 7, 2015) for this grand prize.

The reporters of the winning stories each got a plaque and split the combined cash prize of P60,000.

PDI senior business reporter Doris Dumlao-Abadilla was among the finalists for the article “A Power Plant on Every Roof (Sept. 22, 2014) along with PDI writer Kenneth Del Rosario who wrote “First LEED-Certified School Hopes to Prepare Youth to Be Stewards of the Environment” (March 28, 2015).

Another finalist in the national newspaper category was Philippine Star’s Epi Fabonan III for “Yolanda-Stricken School Reopens with New Disaster-Resilient Buildings” (published June 15, 2015.)

In the community newspaper category, Yas Ocampo of Mindanao Times took the top plum for “Bottles for Walls” (published Aug. 9, 2014), winning a cash prize of P50,000 and a plaque.

Baguio Midland Courier also received “Special Merit Award for Sustainable Construction Reporting” for having three out of the five finalists in the community newspaper category. It split the cash prize of P75,000 with Inquirer, which also had five finalists in the national category.

The three winners from Baguio Midland Courier were Hanna Lacsamana for “Curing the Ills of Overdevelopment” (Aug. 31, 2014); Rimaliza Opiña for “When Development Becomes a Bane” (Aug. 31, 2014) and Harley Palangchao for “Urban Migration: A Threat to the Summer Capital” (Aug. 31, 2014).

Another finalist in the community newspaper category was JM Agreda of Baguio Chronicle for “Construction Materials Linked to Health Problems” (Nov. 8-14, 2014).

The remaining finalists in both national and community newspaper categories received a cash prize of P10,000 each.

The first and only awards of its kind in the Philippines, JASCOR aims to recognize excellent stories from the print media that help the public better understand, appreciate and support sustainable construction. As defined by the Holcim Foundation, sustainable foundation is “building in a way that is socially, economically, environmentally, functionally, and aesthetically balanced to meet today’s needs and to conserve resources for future generations.”

For this year’s awards, JASCOR’s boards of screeners and judges evaluated and ranked stories published in the national and community press between August 1, 2014 and July 31, 2015, picking the top 10 from out of over 1,000 articles screened.

This year’s JASCOR judges were: Chito Salazar, PHINMA Education Network president and CEO;
Tess Bacalla, training director at Philippine Press Institute; Architecht Miguel Guerrero, chair of Green Architecture Advocacy Philippines; Architect Christopher dela Cruz, CEO of Philippine Green Building Council; and Neric Acosta, Secretary/Presidential Adviser for Environmental Protection and General Manager of Laguna Lake Development Authority.