I was nominated at last year’s Philippine Blog Awards for my travel blog, Trippin’ with Noelle De Guzman, but wasn’t able to go. So this year, when my friends Ade, Bim, Fritz, and Marck were nominated, I made it a point to attend the awards night on October 9.

This year’s theme (chosen months in advance) was “One Blogging Nation”, which was highly fitting since bloggers were a major source of information and mobilization for relief efforts in the wake of Typhoon Ondoy. Gang Badoy of Rock Ed Philippines, who was the keynote speaker for the night, also organized a collection of donations in goods on the night itself. It felt good to be part of a celebration of the power blogs have in giving people a voice.

The awards show was also broadcast live over Flippish. Kring, the director of the broadcast, got Ade and Marck to be interviewed (check out Ade’s tongue-in-cheek recap of what occurred) while I sat in the back row with Madz and Marcelle (both nominated) and behind Ade’s fellow Comicgasm writers (also nominees). Marck ended up winning two awards, and Marcelle one.

The back row turned into a sort of heckler’s gallery, where we felt free to fling side comments at the stage, cheer winners on, and even sing “Happy Birthday” to Roch, who won Best Culture&Arts; Blog (incidentally, she and I were classmates in UP). But why am I writing about this when I can just show you video?

In the days leading up to the PBA’s it became a sort of running joke that someone might Kanye an awardee or two, but since there were no acceptance speeches that night (too many awardees), nobody got up to the task. There was, however, a Kanye West there:

He let them finish.

Congratulations to the nominees and winners!

Tags: PBA09

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