MANILA, Philippines - The Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (Palanca Awards) honored the winners at this year’s Awards Ceremony held last Tuesday, Sept. 1.
Among the 57 winning Filipino literary artists was Philippine STAR columnist Edgar Maranan, who writes the “Passage” column. A former diplomat assigned to the Embassy of the Philippines to the United Kingdom, Maranan won second prize in the Dulang Ganap ang Haba (Full-Length Play in Filipino) category. He is also a Palanca Hall of Fame Awardee and by far, has earned the most number of prizes in the history of the awards, and continues to this date.
Now on its 65th year, the country’s most prestigious and longest-running literary contest accepted entries in 22 categories, with the Novel and Nobela categories open this year. Entries for each category were evaluated by select panels of judges especially chosen for their contributions and excellence in their respective fields of literature. A total of 895 entries were received this year.