The awards night for the Tatt Awards finally played out last Friday at the Rigodon Ballroom in the Peninsula Manila. In true form, by the 2nd or 3rd pic, my camera says “low on batt”. Great, so I really scrimped on my photos.
After the cocktails, we moved to the seats in the front part of the ballroom for the ceremony part of the event. The proceedings were hosted by Tim Yap and Divine Lee.
I presented 2 awards, The Advocate and The Artiste. I was supposed to present the first award, The Word Slayer, but I switched last-minute with Gang Badoy since she had to leave immediately. It would’ve been awesome to present the award to @HecklerForever whom we’ve known, but never met, for years on the show. The awards were spread out among performers who were nominated, like Johnoy Danao:
And eventual winner Up Dharma Down. Armi’s vocals are just INSANE.
Viral sensations also performed like recent YouTube darling Arjohn Gilbert who Charice even expressed interest in performing with:
And the extremely talented Maria Aragon, who is backed by no other than Lady Guagua Pampanga:
It’s not just the hype, this young lady can really sing. And she’s charming as hell. I hope she makes it, she’s really good. But of course, the big winner of the evening, for The One category – Filipino Freethinkers:
It’s just nice that the online community is finally recognized. There are award-giving bodies for film, television, music, broadcasting, so it’s high time that the online personalities are given recognition for their contributions. It was an online who’s who, where unknown faces with high-octane online personas overshadowed the artistas and celebs. People were being referred to by their online nicknames, their blog names, their URLs, and photos taken of the usually shy, often photo-allergic online personalities. It’s really nice to hold this at a time when we are at the cusp of acknowledging the legitimate power of the virtual world. As Maria Ressa said in her speech that night (I paraphrase), what we do in the virtual world affects us in the real one. So I was honored to have been part of this as a Tatt Council member, being in the company of people like Maria Ressa, it was loads of fun judging the entries, and it’s nice to be part of the start of an event that could be, in the near future, a household name. The complete set of winners:
The Word Slayer – Loi Reyes Landicho (The Professional Heckler)
The Video Slinger – Mikey Bustos
The #ThoughtMover – Bianca Gonzales
The Artiste – Jin Joson
The Advocate – Elizabeth Angsioco
The Indie Rocker – Up Dharma Down
The Stylisimo – Laureen Uy
The Tech Junkie – Mark Macanas
The Ballbreaker – Lea Salonga
The One – Filipino Freethinkers
