TWO JOURNALISM graduates won the first prizes for their stories on youth and education in the 20th Lasallian Scholarum Awards, an annual contest recognizing exemplary national and campus media coverage of issues affecting young people.
Pam Pastor of class 2003 and Giselle Ombay of class 2019 were among those who were recognized during the awarding ceremony on Thursday, March 13, at the Verdure, Henry Sy Sr. Hall at De La Salle University Manila.
Pastor’s story on the rising number of graduates with Latin honors emerged as the best published feature story. It explores the rise in the number of students who finished their college stint with Latin honors during the pandemic. Possible factors that may have contributed to the phenomenon, such as grade inflation and shifts in teaching methods, were tackled in the story.
Pastor, who had been the Super editor at the Philippine Daily Inquirer for more than two decades, obtained her journalism degree from UST in 2003. She also works as a lifestyle writer and subsection editor at the same publication. Since 2012, Pastor has served as one of the editors of the Young Blood book series, a biannual collection of essays about the experiences of the Inquirer‘s youth contributors.
She has also been recognized by other awarding organizations for her reportage. Last year, she was awarded as outstanding Metro Manila journalist for the article “What caused the shortage of mental health medicine in PH?” by the Philippine Press Institute and the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association.
She has written two books, namely Paper Cuts: Dodging Deadlines, Celebrity Run-ins and Other stories I told the Internet and Planet Panic: Notes from the Queen of Procrastination, which were published in 2010 and 2015, respectively.
Meanwhile, Ombay’s article, “The Cost of Miseducation: Lack of investment in PH education sector,” bagged the Outstanding Online Feature Story award.
The story highlighted the country’s “learning crisis” based on the Second Congressional Commission on Education’s report and delved into the struggles faced by the students and teachers due to poor performance and governance issues.
Ombay is a junior news producer at GMA Network, Inc., where she covers politics, health and education. She also served as public relations writer for communications firm Mediasense, Inc., and online writer for ABS-CBN Corp.
This year’s Lasallian Scholarum Awards carried the theme “Hayag” to honor “the role of Filipino youth and professionals in truth-seeking and empowering journalism.” F
