10th Philippine Web Awards Winner Disqualified; First Runner Up to Receive Trophy

Posted on November 29th, 2007. Written by Rico.

An email sent to the contestants of the 10th PWAs announced the disqualification of Einsteinarts.com, formerly the winner of the Arts and Portfolio category, after the organizers decided that it “was an imitation of an existing template design being offered for sale.” Technograph originally broke the story yesterday afternoon (see: Is a Winner of The 10th Philippine Web Awards Guilty of Plagiarism?).

Media G8way Corporation, the organizers of the 10th Philippine Awards, acknowledged the offer of the website’s owner, Einstein Gan, to voluntarily return the trophy. Kestrel DDM (kestrelddm.com), as first runner-up, will be given the award. For the people’s choice award, Philippine Photo Gallery (philippinephotogallery.com) will receive the honor.

The organizers’ official statement, written by a certain Melba-Jean V. Bernad, took the time to point out that Kestrel DDM “incidentally was among those who brought up the issue of plagiarism in e-mails to MGC.” It also emphasized that “The list of semi-finalists was posted on the PWA Website as early as Oct. 27 for the Web community to see, however, no one contested any of the short-listed entries.”

Update: The official statement is also available online.