Eastern Times editor bags Visayas Best Editorial in National PopDev Media Awards

By MARIVIC A. ALCOBER (PIA 8)
November 30, 2006

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte  –  One of the print journalists from the Visayas Rollie "Carol" Montilla, who participated in the 2nd National Annual PopDev Media Awards bagged the Best Editorial Piece. This was revealed by Maeda Ojeda of the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development Foundation, Inc. (PLCPD).

Montilla, who is the Editor-in-Chief of the local weekly paper Eastern Times is one of the recipients of the awards extended by the PLCPD together with the United Nations Population Fund.

According to Ojeda, the awarding ceremonies of the PLCPD will be conducted in Manila this December. All transportation and accommodation expenses of the awardees will be shouldered by the PLCPD.

Ojeda shared that the categories for the Media Awards are: Best Investigative/Interpretative Report; Best Reportage, wherein bodies of work or series of spot news coverage will be included; and lastly, Best Opinion/Editorial Piece.

On the previous year, only three winners were chosen nationwide, but for this year the search went to the regional level, hence, the winners increased to 12.

The PopDev Media Awards, Ojeda bared, aims to pay tribute to media practitioners nationwide who have produced, written and reported responsible and exemplary news and feature articles on population and development in print during the year. Likewise, the Awards also aims to encourage the media to actively examine population and development issues as social issues that affect the country’s development and to heighten public awareness and knowledge on population and development issues.