PHL reaps 3 awards at YEOSU EXPO
MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Organizing Committee Commissioner General Domingo Ramon Enerio III (right) receives the gold award for Best Creative Design from Yeosu Expo vice secretary general Park Young Dae during the awarding ceremonies culminating the just-concluded 2012 International Exposition in Yeosu, Korea.
The Best Creative Design was just one of the unprecedented three top global awards that the Philippines reaped from its participation in the event.
The other two were another gold for Best Theme Development and the Best Exhibit Award.
Both golds from the Official Participants Awards of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) made the Philippines the first-ever winner of two out of 24 awards in the history of the global award-giving body.
On the other hand, the Best Exhibit Award came from US-based international magazine Exhibitor, which for 25 years has been featuring the world’s most prestigious exhibit-design competitions while ‘honoring the crème de la crème of trade exhibits.’
The three awards saw the Philippines beating every country in its category with a similarly one-module pavilion.
The golds from the BIE highlighted the Philippines’ unmatched adherence to the expo criteria that included the promotion of its values and contribution to the education of the public.
Such values are embodied in the expo theme “The Living Ocean and Coast,” which seeks to address the problems confronting the marine ecosystem by promoting environment-oriented tourism.
With its own theme ‘Islands of Diversity, Seas of Connectivity’ incredibly interpreted mostly with handcrafted materials, the Philippine exhibit consisted mainly of video walls and pods that appeared like floating corals, all conspiring to make visitors feel like being transported into a marine world to witness both its beauty and vulnerabilities.
Spearheaded by the Department of Tourism through the Tourism Promotions Board, the Philippine Organizing Committee is composed of the departments of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry, Environment and Natural Resources, and Budget and Management, and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. and National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Supporting the Philippine participation in the expo were pavilion partners Hyundai Asia Resources Inc., GMA Network Inc., TV5, Cebu Pacific Air, Philippine Airlines, SM Supermalls, computer graphic specialist ImColor, Biemann Produktion Haus Inc., Network of Underwater Digital Imagers Inc., and the community of divers who contributed in putting together an ‘aquarium of diving experiences’ for the exhibits.
