Based on the recent unfolding of events, the saying “everyone’s a critic” can also apparently apply to being an artist. On one end, Bencab thought that adding new categories was silly while Lourd de Veyra proposed his set of nominees which included Bayani Fernando for visual arts, Kuya Germs for Fashion, Ma Mon Luk for culinary arts, GMA for dance, among others:
Now everybody can be a National Artist. They keep adding categories: Landscape Art, Fashion Design, what’s next, hairdressers? They should stick to the seven arts: Music, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts, Literature, Film and Broadcast Arts, and Architecture and Allied Arts. [source]
So in the spirit of adding new categories, I’m proposing the National Artist Award for Blogging. To be eligible for this award, you need to have made significant contributions to the art and science (hindi science, because artists are not scientists) of blogs either through design, development, technique, industry or the very act of blogging itself.
I have the following nominees:
Gail de la Cruz-Villanueva – for being the first Filipina to have her WordPress design template become part of the default templates available with Dreamhost Hosting.
Kring Elenzano – for being the first Filipina to consistently produce, write, and act in her own online video shows.
Mike Abundo – for being the first Filipino to have a phenomenon (known as the “Mike Abundo Effect”) named after him c/o PR specialist Steve Rubel.
Markku Seguerra – for developing the famous iPAP plugin used by many photographers in their blogs globally.
Andrew de la Serna – for developing Ratified.org a blog ranking system.
Who are your choices?