Launching of the Search for Apolinario Mabini Awardees 2017

The Philippine Foundation for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled [PFRD] in coordination with Quezon City Persons with Disabilities Office Affairs [PDAO] is launching the 29th Apolinario Mabini Awards on July 22, 2016, Friday at 1 p.m. It will be held at Bulwagan Amoranto, Quezon City Hall.

The Apolinario Mabini Awards seek to recognize disabled individuals who have made significant contributions in their particular specialization. It honors groups, professionals and organizations that have distinguished themselves in their chosen fields of endeavour and have rendered outstanding services to the disabled sector.

Conducted yearly until 1974 since its inception, a decision was later made to hold the search as a biennial activity in order to provide more time for submission of nominations, as well as better, more in-depth evaluation of the nominee’s qualifications and achievements.

Last year, I was lucky to have been chosen as 2015 Media Advocate of the Year in recognition of my two advocacy film documentaries that tell of the plight of Deaf people, the discrimination they experience, including their fight for their linguistic human rights. In fact, all the works that I do, not only for them but for the PWD sector in general are all meant to empower them by showing their capacities and talents, and by letting our citizens know their condition or what ails them so that understanding and welcoming them would follow. I believe in the power of the visual medium. And strongly believing in an inclusive society, one of my two last works, which incidentally center on Apolinario Mabini himself, include members of SDEAS Deaf playgroup [Silent Steps], a Blind person [Arch. Jaime Silva, director of the 29th A. Mabini Awards], a physically disabled man [PWD leader Abner Manlapaz] whose disability turned out to be same as Mabini’s based on the latest research medical findings, and a twice-exceptional Person with Autism, [Thristan Mendoza], who scored a film for the first time in his life. He graduated from the U.P. College of Music.

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