AFP
Multimedia journalist Patricia Evangelista received the 2014 Kate Webb Prize from Agence France-Presse yesterday for her compelling reporting on conflict and disaster in her native Philippines.
The prize recognises exceptional journalism in dangerous or difficult conditions by Asian journalists.
Evangelista spent a month reporting from fishing and farming communities devastated by Super Typhoon Haiyan, the most powerful storm ever recorded on land, which left nearly 8,000 people dead or missing in November 2013. She travelled to the disaster zones of the central Philippines only weeks after returning from covering a 21-day stand-off between the military and rebels in Zamboanga in the south of the country in which more than 200 people died.
“On both occasions, Patricia chose to focus on the people affected,” Gilles Campion, AFP’s director in the Asia-Pacific region, said at an award ceremony in Singapore.
“Patricia is already an incredibly mature and talented text and video journalist,” he said of the 29-year-old Evangelista, who works for the Philippine news portal www.rappler.com and the local edition of Esquire magazine. Evangelista received a certificate and a 3,000-euro ($3,800) cash prize.
