Philippine Daily Inquirer wins best news coverage, photo at CMMA

The Philippine Daily Inquirer won five awards, including best news coverage and photograph, in the 37th Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA) ceremonies on Wednesday night.

The PDI’s coverage of the papal visit won the best news coverage for its comprehensive coverage of the fourth papal visit in Philippine history in January.

The Inquirer reportorial team for the papal visit coverage included Lito Zulueta, TJ Burgonio, Christian Esguerra, DJ Yap, Leila Salaverria, Jocelyn Uy, Tina Santos, Nestor Burgos, Connie Fernandez and the Inquirer Visayas Bureau.

This paper’s coverage of Pope Francis’ historic visit to the Philippines bested three other finalists in the best news coverage category, including another entry from the Inquirer, the “coverage of the Benhur Luy Files” by Nancy Carvajal.

The theme for this year’s CMMA is “Communicating the Family: A Privileged Place of Encounter with the GIft of Love” based on the message of Pope Francis for World Communications Day last Jan. 24.

“The CMMA holds its 37th anniversary and awards night still wrapped in the afterglow of the pastoral visit of Pope Francis in the five days in early January. Many of the winning media works were in fact all about the visit, encompassing works across the mass media categories,” according to the organizers.

Photographer Lyn Rillon won the top award in the News Photograph category for her work “Wall of Hope.”

“Wall of Hope” refers to the colorful therapeutic wall mural that adorns the lobby of Philippine Children’s Medical Center in Quezon City where kids at the outpatient department wait for treatment.

Seven of the eight other finalists in the News Photograph category were all from the Inquirer.

Rillon was also nominated for her “Real Men Do Cry” while Raffy Lerma was a finalist for his photos “Dark Day” and “Sign of Independence.”

Also named finalists for the same category were Joan Bondoc for her “Bringing Light to Darkness” and “Fathers’ First Embrace”; Niño Jesus Orbeta for “Sleeping it Off” and Rem Zamora for his photo “As Far As the Eyes Can See.”

“The Peacemakers,” a series of special report on peace initiatives in conflict-torn Mindanao by Fernando del Mundo, chief of the Inquirer’s investigative team, bested four other finalists in the Best Special Feature category.

Gilbert Daroy was unopposed in the Best Editorial Cartoon category. He won the top prize for his work “Pope Francis breaks the ice between the United States’ Obama and Cuba’s Castro.” His other work, “Justice Secretary De Lima’s Dilemma on Napoles Affidavit Implicating Senators and Congressmen” was also nominated as a finalist.

Queena Lee-Chua’s “All in the Family” column tied with Francis Kong’s “Business Matters” column in the Philippine Star for the top prize in the Best Business Column category.

Inquirer columnist Randy David’s “Public Lives” was one of the five finalists in the Best Opinion Column category.

For this year’s 37th Catholic Mass Media Awards, the CMMA Foundation received a total number of 803 entries in 60 mass media categories in the broad fields of print, radio, television, advertising, music, the Internet, and student CMMA.

Of these, exactly 284 made it as finalists.

The CMMA was established in 1978 by the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, then Archbishop of Manila, as the means by which the church pays tribute to those who “serve God by means of the mass media.”

Displayed during the awarding ceremonies at the Catholic Mass Media Awards are the photo of a front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer during the paper’s papal coverage and the names of the members of its reportorial team.