11/04/2025
The Straphanger Bags "Columnist of the Year" Award
By Bobby M. Reyes
Part V of “Filipino-American Fourth Estate” Series
Tonight this journalist will receive the "Columnist of the Year" Award from the Filipino-American Press Club of California (FAPCCA) at its Installation of Officers and Achievement Awards Gala. The event will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Whittier, CA. The inductees for the new FAPCCA executive officers, as led by President Adrian Lecaros, will serve for two years.
The award is primarily based on this columnist's writings in The Straphanger, as published by the Philippine Daily Mirror of New York/New Jersey. What probably got the attention of Ms. Thelma Calabio, who nominated this writer for the award, was his style of writing a series of articles about a single subject or topic. She is the founder and president emerita of the FAPCCA, Inc., a public-benefit corporation that was organized in 2012.
Perhaps this author will complete by next year a book about the Fil-Am media organizations in Southern California. It is a follow-up of Mar G. de Vera's book of the same topic that was published in the early 2000s. Mr. De Vera has reportedly joined, too, in the Great Beyond many members of the FAPCLA.
Also figuring prominently in securing the award for the author of The Straphanger was Jobo Elizes. He is a New York-based publisher. He selected articles from this author's columns and Facebook Notes and published them into six books. Four of the books were published as Volumes 1-to-4 of the "Mabuhay Writings" and two more in the "Filipino Witticisms" book series. All the six books are available in Amazon Books.
This writer started writing a column called "Unsolicited Advice" in two Filipino-American sister publications, the Filipino Journal and the Manila Standard-Los Angeles edition in November 1988. Unfortunately both publications closed shop in the 1990s.
This columnist learned many lessons as a member of Class 1966 in the San Beda College's School of Journalism in the City of Manila. The class learned that journalists, especially columnists, perform important, and even crucial, roles in influencing people's perceptions, behaviors and decision making. They do it by disseminating, and discussing, information, so as to elevate the readers' awareness. They provide education for -- and add to, if not complete -- the readers' knowledge of some crucial issues. Their writings, especially opinion-editorial (op-ed) pieces and columns, facilitate communication among individuals; and even influence society's policy-and-decision makers' outputs. Their writings enable also many readers to gain insights into various community, global, social, and environmental causes and concerns.
This writer shares the award with the publisher, editors, webmaster, staff and other columnists of the Philippine Daily Mirror. Because everybody in the PDM
-- from writers, columnists, editors and staff -- help each other in maintaining the high bar of complying with the tenets of journalism.
Tonight, this awardee will deliver maybe the shortest acceptance speech ever in Filipino-American events. To wit: "Thank you, President Emerita Thelma Calabio, President Adrian Lecaros and President Emeritus Andy Edralin, the club's executive officers and directors. Thanks also my literary benefactors, especially Ceny, my wife, and children Lizette and JBL for supporting my writings and activism for the past 37 years. I humbly accept the award, my first in journalism. To paraphrase President George H. Bush, don't read our lips, please read our writings. For hopefully, the best is still to come from all of us."
Reyes is a prolific journalist. Since 1988 he wrote over 6,000 essays, columns, and Facebook Notes in 85 Facebook Groups that he founded. He has authored eight books, six of which are available on Amazon Books. Tonight's special award is his first for journalism. He has received honors like MegaScene of Chicago's first Apolinario Mabini Award. The Filipino Image Magazine of Washington, D.C., named him one of its Twenty Outstanding Filipinos Abroad (TOFA) in 2006 for chairing Los Angeles' Kalayaan Independence Committee and the first Fil-Am Community Night at Dodgers Stadium. He has already entries for a literary award in New York for 2026 and a Swedish Prize for 2027.
