17/04/2025
In Loving Memory
Nora Aunor
1953-2025
National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts
2014 U.P. Gawad Plaridel Awardee for Transmedia: Film, Music, and Television
U.P. Gawad Plaridel Citation:
For her unique artistry and versatility as a singer, which catapulted her to sudden fame as sole champion for many months in the national contest Tawag ng Tanghalan and proved to all and sundry that talent, no matter its origin, can breach the borders set by the elite and the erudite, and, coupled with charisma, can conjure a phenomenal army of admirers that now includes many sectors, classes, and generations of Filipinos both here and abroad;
For portraying with intelligence and sensitivity an amazing number and types of characters on the silver screen, all of which earned for her the highest plaudits from critics and cinephiles from all levels of Philippine society;
For producing, through her NV Productions, movies of notable quality, which brought together important directors, writers, actors, and other film artists who, through her support as actor and/or producer, were able to create films that helped raise the bar in Philippine filmmaking;
For starring in television programs that lasted for many years and are now etched in the national memory which showcased her skills in song and dance and established a new format in Philippine television, and which brought to the public both fine dramatic acting and relevant narratives of everyday life;
For challenging the colonial standards that privileged the mestiza as paragon of beauty in Filipino film and society and proving that the features of the kayumanggi— honey-gold skin, crow-black hair, and petite body — are as legitimate as any other, especially because in the Philippines the kayumanggi embodies the aesthetics of the Malay majority that has prevailed from the pre-colonial period to the present, from rural to urban, from slum to mansion;
For using her tremendous popularity as a key to open to the masses who idolized her and identified with her origins, the world of sensible films and plays that dramatized and analyzed the abject conditions of the Filipino majority and the poor and powerless characters that she played with conviction and invested with a glimmer of hope in social change;
For her sheer artistry and stunning virtuosity as a performer that has brought luster and light to Philippine radio, television, and film, made her the exemplar and benchmark of excellence for both her contemporaries and successors, and raised the film and broadcast media to levels higher than where she found them at the start of her felicitous career as an artist.
