MB Lensman wins gold
by Anjo Perez
September 22, 2013
Manila Bulletin bagged the Gold Award for a highly-charged photo of an encounter between police authorities and informal settlers taken in 2012 by Linus Guardian Escandor.
The award was conferred by the prestigious World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) during the Asian Media Awards.
The photo captured the confrontation of duty and exasperation – as policemen of Paranaque City tried to implement a demolition order on the houses of informal settlers. The encounter caused one dead resident and many hurt after the informal settlers barricaded a street and fought the officers.
Escandor is a multi-awarded photojournalist. This is Escandor’s third award from the same awards body. He won the Silver and Bronze medals in the Asian Media Awards in 2008 and 2010, respectively. In 2007, he won first place in the Spot News category of the international photo contest sponsored by the International Organization for Migration for his photograph of the Tropical Storm Ketsana mudslide. In 2009, Escandor’s photograph on climate change won a competition with that topic sponsored by National Geographic.
The awarding body –WAN-IFRA –is the global organization representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.
The Asian Media Awards is the annual contest it organizes to give recognition to outstanding work in the media. It is participated in by hundreds of newspapers and magazines in Asia Pacific, South Asia and Middle-East, making it the most prestigious recognition of excellence for the news publishing industry in the region.
This year’s WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards was held Sept. 11, 2013 in Bangalore, India.