STAR named Best Business Newspaper

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine STAR dominated the 20th Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP) Inc. Business Journalism Awards, bagging four out of 10 awards given in recognition of outstanding coverage of the different business beats.

EJAP, in cooperation with Globe, announced the winners on Tuesday night during the awarding ceremony held at the Metropolitan Museum, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex in Manila.

The STAR reporters who won included Lawrence Agcaoili (Banking Reporter of the Year), Iris Cecilia Gonzales (Finance Reporter of the Year) and Mary Ann Reyes (Telecoms Reporter of the Year).

The STAR was also named the “Business News Source of the Year” for grabbing the most number of awards in the various categories.

The rest of the winners were: Jennifer Ng, of BusinessMirror for the Agriculture beat; Amy Remo of the Philippine Daily Inquirer for the Energy beat; Darwin Amojelar of the Manila Times for the Macroeconomy beat; Jennifer Austria of the Manila Standard Today for the SEC/PSE beat; and Ben Arnold de Vera of the Manila Times for Trade and Industry beat.

The feature article titled “5 years after, NAIA 3 up and running as legal row eases” written by Lenie Lectura of BusinessMirror won the “Best Feature Story of the Year” award.

This year’s judges include Milwida Guevara (president of Synergeia Foundation) who served as head judge, Omar Cruz (chief investment officer of Philam), Consuelo Garcia (ING country manager), Tomas Gomez IV (president of GM Bank of Luzon), Ernesto Pernia (UP economics professor and former ADB economist), Ronald Solis (president of the Philippine Bar Association and former commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission), Arthur Aguilar (president of Global Business Power Corp. and former president of the National Transmission Corp.) and Teresa Habitan (finance assistant secretary).

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco, Jr. delivered the keynote address.

Punongbayan & Araullo served as the official tabulator of scores for the 20th EJAP Business Journalism Awards.

Each of the winning beat reporters received a trophy and a cash prize of P35,000. The author of the “Feature Story of the Year” received a trophy and a cash prize of P30,000. The winners for each category also received an iPAD2 from Globe. The “Best Business News Source of the Year” received a trophy.

The EJAP Business Journalism Awards, an annual activity, is aimed at promoting excellence in the business journalism industry.