“MISSION: PHL, the BusinessMirror’s Envoys & Expats Awards,” a trailblazing initiative to recognize outstanding development partners of the Philippines and their best projects, won the Gold Anvil Award for Public Relations Program Directed at Specific Stakeholders at the 55th Anvil Awards night on Friday (February 28).
The jurors for what has been dubbed the “Emerald Anvils” recognized the country’s premier business daily for “pioneering the recognition of nations and international organizations that have truly helped Filipinos here and abroad.”
It was the first time for BusinessMirror, which marks its 15th anniversary in 2020, to join the Anvil, although its journalistic work has earned numerous awards for the paper and its staff.
Receiving the Gold Anvil trophy for the BusinessMirror in marathon rites at the jampacked Fiesta Pavilion of the Manila Hotel were: ALC Media Group Chairman D. Edgard A. Cabangon; BusinessMirror Publisher T. Anthony C. Cabangon; BM Editor in Chief Lourdes Molina-Fernandez; and Mission: PHL Project Director Psyche Roxas-Mendoza, also managing editor of the Philippines Graphic magazine.
They were joined by BusinessMirror VP for Sales Marvin Estigoy, Advertising Manager Aldwin M. Tolosa and BM’s Envoys & Expats page editor Mike Policarpio.
Legacy of ‘Amba’
The newspaper’s late founder, former Philippine Ambassador to Laos Antonio L. Cabangon Chua, had conceived of the Envoys & Expats page in the BusinessMirror, as a way of recognizing the work of the Philippines’ foreign partners and allies; as well as outstanding expatriate personalities in industry and other sectors, and in nongovernment and volunteer organizations.
The Envoys & Expats concept was later expanded to a full-blown search and awarding for such outstanding foreign partners, notably embassies, aid agencies and projects utilizing official development assistance (ODA). Thus was born “Mission: PHL, the BusinessMirror Envoys & Expats Awards,” a biennial search that had its first awarding rites on April 4, 2019 at the SM Aura.
In his keynote speech on April 4, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. hailed “Mission: PHL” as a fitting initiative to express concrete appreciation to the Philippines’s ODA partners, who for decades have helped the country ramp up vital infrastructure and boost public services that advance human progress.
The major awards for the first “Mission: PHL” were: the Australian Embassy for the Outstanding Development Partner government; the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as Outstanding Development Aid Agency; and the European Union’s novel rehabilitation program for former drug users, as the Project of the Year.
Mission: PHL partnered with 10 government agencies, led by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), to conduct the technical screening of entries. For Category Awards by sector, eight agencies selected also the best foreign-assistance development projects that were lodged with them: the Department of Education, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Agriculture, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Transportation and Department of Tourism.
BusinessMirror also partnered with audit and consultancy firm Alas Oplas & Company for “Mission: PHL.”