And the people’s choices are…

There were clear winners and there were those that won just by a hair strand.

The Fort Global City was the place to be last Saturday evening, April 30 for most of the local automotive industry’s leaders, prime movers, major players and top executives to witness the presentation of awards for the people’s choice of the most popular vehicles for 2005 as determined by text voting that lasted for over a month.

The 2005 Auto Focus Automobile of the Year — People’s Choice Awards, as presented by Michelin Tires in cooperation with Smart Addict Mobile, were given in fitting ceremonies to automobiles that garnered the most number of votes in each of the 13 categories with the model most voted upon given the distinction of being the "Automobile of the Year".

Each winner was given a most appropriate AYPC Piston Trophy made by Asahi Glass. The AYPC Piston Trophy is a chrome-finished engine piston enclosed in thick glass with the name of the auto manufacturer, the model and the particular award deeply etched in the glass casing for posterity.

Topping the polls this year in this first-ever-held awards was the top choice in the "compact SUV" category, the Nissan X-Trail — the Auto Focus Automobile of the Year — People’s Choice, giving Nissan Motors Philippines a total of four "AYPC Piston Trophies" with the Nissan Cefiro’s "Midsize Sedan of the Year" and Nissan 350Z’s "Sports Car of the Year" awards also tucked under its belt. Nissan’s Raymond Tribdino was visibly delighted for their hard-earned victories as he received the various trophies for his bosses who missed the affair.

Toyota Motor Philippines garnered a total of three "AYPC Piston Trophies" for capturing the "Gasoline-powered AUV of the Year" by its Toyota Revo, the "Large Van of the Year" by the Toyota HiAce and the Toyota Innova’s "Minivan of the Year" award. TMPC top marketing executives Kenji Nakashima and first vice president for marketing Danny Isla together with Toyota’s "go-to man" for media Ariel de Jesus received the awards on behalf of TMPC president Nobuharu Tabata who was earlier present but had to leave for another waiting appointment.

But it was the president of Isuzu Philippines Corporation himself, Yoshifumi Komura, who accepted the two AYPC Piston Trophies representing their "twin win" for this maiden presentation of the awards. One was for the Isuzu Crosswind for winning the "Diesel-powered AUV of the Year" award and for the Isuzu D-Max as the "Pickup of the Year".

Volvo Cars was also a "twin-winner" with their Volvo XC70 romping off with the "Large Sedan or Station Wagon of the Year" award and the Volvo XC90 getting proclaimed the "Midsize SUV of the Year". Atty. Albert Arcilla, president of Viking Cars, exclusive distributors of Volvo in the country gamely went up the stage twice to accept the literally heavy AYPC Piston Trophies.

Another "twin-winner", General Motors Philippines, got hold of the "Compact Sedan of the Year" award with its top-selling Chevy Optra together with the Chevy Tahoe’s "Large SUV of the Year" distinction. One of GM Philippines top honchos for sales, Bobby Shaw, accepted the awards for the world’s largest auto company’s representative office in the country.

The newly-designated and very young-looking Honda Cars Philippines president Takashi Sekiguchi was also honored with a AYPC Piston Trophy for the people’s vote for the Honda Jazz as the "Subcompact Car of the Year" to round up the 13 automobiles that were voted most in their individual categories by the public as the most popular automobiles in the Philippines in 2005.

Presenters of the awards who came from the business, media, motor sports and private sectors include the Philippines’ "living legend of motor sports" and TV host, Jose "Pocholo" Ramirez, Riz Dalangin, country representative of Michelin Tires — AYPC’s presenting sponsor, Jon Jon L. San Agustin, department head — postpaid category of Smart communications — AYPC’s cooperating sponsor, Jose "Ping" de Jesus, president & CEO of Manila North Tollways Corporation, Peter Binamira, president of Alter Media Solutions — AYPC’s SMS provider, Dong Magsajo, motoring editor of The Philippine STAR & SPMJ vice president, Vernon Sarne, motoring editor of the Manila Times & SPMJ founding member and vice president, Gus Lagman, president of the Automobile Association of the Philippines, Col. Rene Rapisura, vice chairman of Bolinao Security & Investigation Agency, Nilo Luna, GM of Tiara Commercial & Industrial Corp., Mariano Gui, PIO of DOTC-MRT 3, Tyson Sy, champion Formula 3 driver and Louis Ramirez, Subic International Raceway 2004 Touring Car champion.

Sunshine Television, rights holders of the awards, has announced that a huge "AYPC Golden Piston Trophy" awaits the manufacturer that can win the "Auto Focus Automobile of the Year — People’s Choice Award" for three years, not necessarily in a row. This can only mean that these awards would now be a yearly affair. The plans are to have a much bigger and a wider-based polls next year with the active participation of provincial auto dealers as ‘auto grand displays and test drives’ would also be held during the text voting period in major cities like Cebu in the Visayas, Davao in Mindanao and Angeles in Central Luzon.

Credits where credits are due — Gerry Aquino, former top marketing executive of Philip Morris in the country who used to run the Marlboro Tours for ably keeping things together as the APC Project Director, Tet Andolong of Wingmakers Event Management, for the organizational savvy, fellow SPMJ founding member Popong Andolong, aside from being ever-supportive for wife Tet, has greatly contributed to the success of the project, not to mention his directing of the whole Awards night in collaboration with Jenny Bleza, another SPMJ founding member and Sunshine TV vp & production manager, Alex Morales and his marshals for the orderly test drives, Vanie Abrenio for her knack to keep things in order and the entire Sunshine Television officers, staff and crew — no, we would not have pulled this one through without all of you. We also like to thank the Vintage Car Club headed by Ding Jose and the Manila Sports Car Club for displaying their prized possessions for their fellow auto enthusiasts to see and appreciate. The thirst-quenching relief courtesy of my sister-in-law, Evelyn Gamboa of Genuino Water was not only very much welcomed, it was refreshing.

No Cars, Just Golf

It was that day of the year when the leaders, movers, shakers and top executives of the local automotive industry would forget about maximum power & torque, top speed, suspension system and other attributes of their automobile models as compared to those of the competition but just think about their drives and putts and how to have a whole day of fun in the golf course — it was the day for the golf-for-a-cause of SPMJ, the Society of Philippine Motoring Journalists — the 2nd SPMJ Invitational Golf Cup.

Arranged alphabetically, the following automotive companies generously donated to the cause of the society, which is to educate the youth to become future responsible road users, not only as disciplined drivers but as safe pedestrians as well — BMW Philippines, Ford & Mazda Philippines, General Motors Automobiles Philippines, Honda Cars Philippines, Isuzu Philippines, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines, Toyota Motor Philippines and Viking Cars for Volvo. Conspicuously absent this year was Universal Motors while Raymond Tribdino of Nissan Motors, which also did not join last year, had committed for his company an equal amount of donation for the golf tournament for SPMJ’s other logistic requirements. Total Oil came up with their own donation to support SPMJ’s advocacy, which was in cash form and fuel coupons that were raffled off to lucky participants. Asahi Glass again rose to the occasion and once again supplied the glass trophies and plaques needed for the tournament.

The funds raised in last year’s staging of the tournament were utilized to create and produce teaching modules for elementary and high school students on the proper and safe use of the roads. The National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) of the UP was commissioned by SPMJ to produce the modules. This year’s golf-for-a-cause would help in the printing of these modules or lesson plans that are to be distributed free to interested schools as well as for the logistic requirements for going around the different schools to create awareness among the students on the importance of learning what the teaching modules offer to teach.

Despite all the fun that came as the different representatives from competing automobile companies played together in the same flight, it was indeed a very closely fought tourney with the winning team ahead only by a point over the two teams that shared the runner up slot.

Team Toyota successfully defended its championship title by winning over runners up Teams Mitsubishi and BMW under the "System 36" rules on which the tournament, which was officially supervised by Riviera Golf Club, our co-sponsors under the tutelage of club president Commodore Danny Pizarro, was played. It took quite a while before we finally released the results as we made sure the scores of players who can only play in the individual category for being "rated" were not included in the computation for Team honors.

The other results of the 2nd SPMJ Invitational Golf Cup include Class A Champion — Raffy Juan of Team General Motors; Class B Champion — Ronnie Fabello of Team Isuzu; Class C Champion — Willie Tee Ten of Team Ford; Media Category Champion — Ricky Alegre; Sponsors/Guests & Friends Category Champion — Cosco Oben of Team Toyota.

Fun Prizes include — Nearest to the Pin — Greg Yu; Longest Drive (322 yrds.) — Cosco Oben; Longest Putt — Edmund Yee; Most Accurate Drive (223 yrds) — Al Mendoza; Most Number of Birdies — Raffy Jan; best in Uniform — Team Isuzu.

The automotive industry had a whole day of fun being together sans the thoughts of automobile engine performance, looks and price — just their drives and putts and much safer roads for our children and our children’s children.

Happy Motoring!!!

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