GMA Cebu skips website award

CEBU CITY—GMA-7 Cebu won the Best Corporate Website category by the Catholic Mass Media Awards (CMMA) recently but declined the award, saying they have yet to launch the website.

Albert Aballe, editor of the website, said they had not yet launched the awarded site since it was still under testing stage.

“It should not be awarded because we had not gone public yet. It’s still under construction,” Aballe said.

He said they were notified of the nomination even if they didn’t apply for the category.

Aballe said he told CMMA organizers that they would decline the nomination.

“I thought they understood it. I was very surprised when they told me that it won,” he said.

Aballe said they would still keep the site a secret since it wasn’t officially launched.

Teoddie Dumam-ag, CMMA chairperson and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of San Jose Recoletos, said he never saw the website himself.

He said they didn’t receive any reply from GMA declining the nomination.

The jurors of the corporate website category were representatives from the Cebu Normal University, USJR and other selected organizations.

Dumam-ag said he also sent a text message to GMA finalizing the nomination but he did not receive a reply.

During the awarding ceremony, Dumam-ag said he received a text from Aballe saying they would decline the award.

“Aballe’s not the authorized person to return it,” he said.

Dumam-ag said the event won’t have any negative effect on the CMMA awarding committee.

“We provide the avenue to recognize the values espoused by the Commission,” he said.

Other CMMA winners include Luis Quibranza of Sun.Star for Best English feature and Sun.Star’s Justin K. Vestil for Best English News. Best English Column went to Fr. Roy Cimagala of The Freeman.

Best TV news program went to TV Patrol Central Visayas of ABS-CBN Cebu while DYHP bagged the best news program for radio. Candeze R. Mongaya