National finalists for 3rd Philippine Blog Awards announced

With Filipino bloggers scattered across the country and all over the world, not just one but three awarding ceremonies for the 3rd Philippine Blog Awards (PBA) will be held this year.

"This will reflect the theme which is One Blogging Nation," PBA official Juned Sonido said in a press briefing on Thursday, where he announced the list of national finalists.

In Luzon, the awards will be held at the Peta Theater in Quezon City on October 9. For the Visayas, the awards will be held at the Cebu Business Park in Cebu City on Oct. 18 while in Mindanao, it will take place at the Pearlmont Hotel in Cagayan De Oro City on Oct. 24.

Recognizing the diversity of bloggers, Sonido said a special category for expatriates residing in the Philippines and non-Filipinos who blog about Filipino-related topics has been created.

More than one-fifth of nearly a thousand blogs that joined this year’s contest made it to the shortlist. The 208 finalists are vying in 20 categories, as well as four special awards for design, foreign blog, Filipino abroad, and Filipiniana. The regional finalists, who are competing for 12 more awards, have yet to be announced.

Among the national finalists are:

• iNews Philippines
• Ready To Be Rich
• Philippine Basketball Blog
• Pinoy Experience Mountain Biking and Outdoor Philippines
• Art in Action; Matinong Ehemplo Ng Youth Ehemplo ng Kabataan

[To see the complete list, click here]

"I think for most bloggers who got involved in this, (we) would like to showcase which one is the best in blogging, which one is noteworthy," Sonido said.

He said the blogs would be judged through their eligibility, content, and design. Judges for the winning blogs will be announced during the awarding ceremony, he added.

Acknowledging the rising number of bloggers, Sonido also encouraged them to be more responsible in their writing.

"I think it’s in the best interest of all bloggers to write responsibly. Kasi in the end … you are more open to legal suits if you don’t blog responsibly. Your reputation might get tarnished if you are not careful with what you write," Sonido said.

Mother in tearful plea for Vietnam blogger's release

The mother of a blogger detained in Vietnam made a tearful plea Monday for her daughter's release after two other online writers were freed.

"Help us to get her free!" Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan told Agence France-Presse in a tearful telephone conversation from the southern coastal city of Nha Trang, where her daughter Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, 30, has been held since Wednesday.

Quynh blogged under the name "Me Nam".

"My daughter is still detained until now. I tried to visit her this morning but the police prevented me," she said.

Quynh had written about the sensitive topic of Vietnam-China relations, her mother said.

She had blogged about a controversial bauxite mining project in the Central Highlands and also about two South China Sea archipelagos, the Paracels and Spratleys, her mother said.

The bauxite project triggered a rare public outcry, partly over security concerns because a Chinese company has been granted a major contract there.

Vietnam and China, both ideologically communist, are engaged in a boundary dispute over the Paracels and Spratleys.

Quynh's mother said that on July 20 her daughter also wore a tee shirt calling for the cancellation of the bauxite project and announcing Vietnamese sovereignty over the archipelagos.

She was accused of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, a crime which can lead to a prison term, her mother said.

A foreign diplomat, who asked not to be named, said Quynh had gone "a step further" than blogging by attempting to produce more of the tee shirts with two other online writers arrested in late August.

One of them, Bui Thanh Hieu, 37, told AFP he was released on Saturday. Hieu blogs under the name Nguoi Buon Gio (Wind Trader), and had written about the maritime dispute as well as the mining project.

The third person recently arrested, Pham Doan Trang, a journalist for prominent news website VietnamNet, has also been released, a diplomatic source said.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had called for the immediate release of Hieu and Trang.