Laiban Dam story finalist
in ADB journalism award

awardees smile for a souvenir photo (from the DAJA website)

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism fellow Roel Landingin recently bagged the second runner-up prize from the Developing Asia Journalism Awards 2010 (DAJA) sponsored by the Asian Development Bank Institute for a story exposing the secrecy shrouding the tender of the P 52-billion Laiban Dam project, the biggest dam project of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS).

The story, published in several major newspapers in July 2009, showed how the project appeared to have been engineered to favor its awarding San Miguel Corporation, whose chairman and CEO is Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr., former Marcos crony and ally of former President Gloria Arroyo.

The project would have been the biggest infrastructure contract of the Arroyo administration, and the biggest in the 131-year history of the MWSS.

The Developing Asia Journalism Awards was established in 2004 to “build capacity among journalists working on key development issues.”

“The annual awards honor the work and contributions of journalists actively engaged in the responsible dissemination of knowledge related to poverty reduction, and other areas that support long-term growth in Asia and the Pacific,” according to the DAJA website.

The main prize of Development Journalist of the Year was awarded to Mridu Khullar of India, for a story entitled “The Treasure of Trash.”