Winners in 2008 Jose G. Burgos Jr. Awards for Biotech Journalism awarded

The reporters from Philippine Daily Inquirer and BusinessWorld topped the winners in the 2008 Jose G. Burgos Jr. Awards for Biotech Journalism which awarding ceremonies was held on Thursday, November 27, at the Institute for Small-Scale Industries in the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.

Anselmo Roque of the Philippine Daily Inquirer bagged the first prize in the Best Feature Story category for his article "Carabao may be key to biofuel, says scientist", while Eric Dorente of BusinessWorld won the first prize in the Best News Story Category for his article "Biotech and GMO use on the rise in RP."

The Manila Bulletin, BusinessMirror and The Philippine Star won the first, second and third prizes, respectively, in the institutional category for supporting the information dissemination of biotech stories by printing the most number of such stories.

Melody Aguiba of Manila Bulletin was conferred the Hall of Fame award for having won the top prize in the J.Burgos biotechnology awards in the past three years.

Special citations were given to Sonny Tababa former Network Administrator of Searca-Biotech Information Unit, and to Dr. Randy Hautea, Global Coordinator and SEAsia Center Director of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications for effectively promoting biotechnology in their respective fields.

The other awardees for the Best Feature category are: Doreen Yu (Philippine Star), second place, for her article "Scientist of the Year: Baldomero M. Olivera discovers poisonous secrets;" and Emmanuel Libre Osorio (BusinessMirror), third place, for "The future in a grain: The Rice Profit Protocol prompts the birth of an innovative school." Two articles of Tessa Salazar of Philippine Daily Inquirer were among the finalists. They were "RP seas may hold key to cancer cure" and "4 MIT students eye 'malunggay' for fuel."

The other awardees for the Best News category are: Dennis Estopace (BusinessMirror), second place, for his story "Pinoy scientists speed up filing of US patents to secure their sea-snails studies;" and Jojo de Guzman (Malaya), third place, for "Rice that can withstand 2-week submergence developed." The finalists in this category are Conrad Cariño (Manila Times) for article "Coconut, 'malunggay' present golden opportunity to farmers;" and Danny Calleja (BusinessMirror) for his "'Smart' biofuel crops now being promoted."

Keynoting the ceremonies was foremost Filipino scientist Dr. William Padolina, the current deputy director general of the International Rice Research Institute and former secretary of the Department of Science and Technology.

The annual biotech journalism award, which started in 2005, was part of the celebration of the National Biotechnology Week from November 24 to 29.

This year's board of judges was composed of experts in biotechnology and communication, and from the academe. They are Dr. Patricio Faylon, executive director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and National Resources and the board of judges chairman; Dr. Gaudencio Petalcorin Jr., national president of Biotechnology Information and Organization Network (BIONet); Dr. Saturnina Halos, chairperson of the Department of Agriculture-Biotechnology Advisory Team; Rolly Estabillo, vice president for corporate communications of Philippine Airlines; and Angelo Palmones, president of Philippine Science Journalists Association of the Philippines Inc.

The 2008 Jose G. Burgos Jr. Awards for Biotech Journalism was organized by the Biotech Media and Advocacy Resource Center, a consortium that promotes the government's biotech program. BMARC is composed of the Department of Agriculture-Biotech Program Office, Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture, Biotech Coalition of the Philippines (BCP), and the J.Burgos Media Services Inc.

Biotech journalism news_winners.JPG (Manman Dejeto for BioLife News Service)

Winners in the news category of the recently concluded Jose G. Burgos Jr. Awards for Biotechnology Journalism are awarded in the University of the Philippines-Diliman Institute for Small-Scale Industries. In photo are Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines secretary general Abe Manalo; Biotechnology for Life Media and Advocacy Resource Center executive director Dr. Edith Burgos; BCP president and chief executive officer Dr. Nina Gloriani; second prize winner Dennis Estopace from Business Mirror; first prize winner Eric Dorente from Business World; third prize winner Jojo de Guzman from Malaya; finalist Danny Caleja from Business Mirror; Institute for Rice Research Institute deputy director general Dr. William Padolina; Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Segfredo Serrano; and DA-Biotechnology Program director Alicia Ilaga.

Biotech journalism feature winners.JPG (Manman Dejeto for BioLife News Service)
Winners in the features category of the recently concluded Jose G. Burgos Jr. Awards for Biotechnology Journalism are awarded in the University of the Philippines-Diliman Institute for Small-Scale Industries. In photo are Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Dr. Nina Gloriani; Biotechnology for Life Media and Advocacy Resource Center executive director Dr. Edith Burgos; third prize winner Emmanuel Libre Osorio of Business Mirror; first prize winner Dr. Anselmo Roque from Philippine Daily Inquirer-Central Luzon; second prize winner Doreen Yu's representative Helen Flores from the Philippine Star; national editor Pergentino Bandayrel Jr. representing finalist Tessa Salazar; Institute for Rice Research Institute deputy director general Dr. William Padolina; Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Segfredo Serrano; and DA-Biotechnology Program director Alicia Ilaga.

Winners of Biotech Journalism Award Out on November 27

The 4th Jose G. Burgos Awards for Biotech Journalism will honor the winners during ceremonies scheduled from noon to 2 p.m. on November 27, 2008 at the Institute of Small-Scale Industries of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

Organizers said the awards will recognize reporters who wrote outstanding news stories and feature stories in national dailies from August 2007 to July 2008.

The first prize winner for news and features will bring home P30,000 while the second placer will pocket P20,000. The third price winner will receive P10,000. All three winners will also receive plaques.

Institutional awards will also be given to three newspapers that published the most number of news stories and feature articles.

The board of judges for this year’s awards is comprised of the following: Dr. Patricio Faylon, executive director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources, the panel chairman; Dr. Gaudencio Petalcorin Jr., national president of Biotechnology Information and Organization Network; Dr. Saturnina Halos, chairperson of the Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Advisory Team; Rolly Estabillo, vice president for corporate communications of Philippine Airlines; and Angelo Palmones, president of Philippine Science Journalists Association Inc.

The articles which qualified in the awards were collected from among those monitored by the Biotechnology Media and Advocacy Resource Center, a consortium that promotes the government’s biotech program. BMARC has been conducting the awards to help motivate and sustain interest of media practitioners in disseminating biotech information.

BMARC is composed of the Department of Agriculture-Biotechnology Program Office, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture, Biotech Coalition of the Philippines (BCP), Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Development (PCARRD-DOST) and the J. Burgos Media Services Inc. (biolife news service)

DA Biotech Experts Develop Method to Detect Genuine Hybrid Rice Strains

When a typical Filipino starts on a meal, the first thing he takes from the table is not salad or any other appetizer, but rice.

Rice, which was domesticated in the Indian subcontinent about 6,000 years ago, has become an indelible part of the diet and culture as well.

Today, Filipinos are considered as one of the world's biggest consumers of rice on a per capita basis.

However, one of the most serious challenges that Philippine agriculture is its inability to provide enough grain to feed more than 88 million Filipinos and biotechnologists are in the thick of the battle to increase yield and develop pest-free and high-yielding strains that use less inputs.

Estimates vary but the official figure is that the 1.8 million hectares of rice farms could only provide 90 percent of the country's rice requirement.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) has set a rice sufficiency target of 98 percent by 2010 and 100 percent sufficiency by 2013.

Soaring rice prices worldwide due to demand have made the grain a precious commodity. Only 7 percent of the total global production of the grain is sold in the world market.

China, the world's most populous country with 1.36 billion people, keeps its rice production figure a state secret and its huge purchases early this year had been fingered as the reason why the price went sky high.

With the high demand for rice, the world's biggest exporters, Thailand and Vietnam, have dominated the sellers' market and the Philippines eventually became their most avid customer.

However, there is another problem besetting rice, and this is the presence of what has been dubbed as a "varietal impostor." Fakes abound in the real world in defiance of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) but bogus rice is not an everyday occurrence.

The Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Program Office (DA-BPO) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) have found the solution to fraudulent identity of commercially released hybrid rice through the establishment of genotype identity analysis, assisted by Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) and Sequence Tagged Sites (STS) molecular markers or microsatellites.

A microsatellite is polymorphic or an organism having more than one adult form (carrying different functions as to the castes of social ants).

PhilRice is specifically conducting the study on the Mestizo rice variety, since it is one of the most popular varieties of commercial rice. Through the identification of the variety's gene traits, the application of the SSR markers will allow the identification of the authentic variety from the varietal impostor.

The application of the SSR and STS markers is the more convenient way of testing the hybrid lines than the use of typical "grow-out" test.

This way, farmers are protected from fraud in purchasing hybrid rice varieties for planting.

Bacterial blight is one of the most fatal pests that can hobble rice production. It is caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae. It is a vascular disease that results in a systematic infection that produces tannish-grey to white lesions among the veins. Symptoms are observed at the tillering stage, disease incidence progresses with plant growth, peaking at the flowering stage. Infection at seedling stage may result to wilt or crop failure. The disease causes losses that range from 20 percent to 50 percent of production loss in the rice fields.

DA-BPO and PhilRice came up with the technology to improve and enhance the parental lines of the Mestizo rice variety by incorporating Blight Resistant properties, through Background Marker Selection (MAB) using genomewide SSRs.

This can be considered as a major breakthrough in the country's current campaign to increase rice supply and thus achieve modest gains in the battle to achieve food sufficiency and food sovereignty in the long run. (biolife news service)