The much-awaited painting competition for young artists is back!
The 31st edition of the DPC-PLDT Visual Arts Competition (VAC 31) takes off on November 8, 2016 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Manuel Conde. The launch, followed by a VAC 31 roadshow in north and south Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, celebrates the rich creative talent of fine arts students across the country.
Organized by Directories Philippines Corporation (DPC) and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the competition is open to student artists, aged 18-24, who are currently enrolled in accredited Philippine tertiary schools with a fine arts program.
This year, VAC 31 challenges fine arts students to interpret the theme “Habang May Buhay, May Pag-asa” in oil or acrylic. Essentially, their task is to create paintings that depict how Filipinos value life and how Pinoys remain cheerful and hopeful despite the adversities they face everyday.
Each participating fine arts school or department selects a maximum of five official entries to the competition. Direct student entries will not be accepted. Official entries must be delivered to the DPC Main Office, 2322 Don Chino Roces Avenue Extension, Makati City between February 20 and March 3, 2017 from 10 am to 5 pm.
The top three winners will have their works featured on the covers of 2017-18 telephone directories of DPC (Yellow Pages) and PLDT (White Pages) in key cities in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
The first place winning student will receive P100,000 in cash and the VAC 31 grand prize trophy, aside from securing a P40,000 donation to his/her school’s fine arts program. Cash prizes of P75,000 and P60,000, plus trophies, await the second and third placers, with corresponding donations to their respective schools. In addition, each of the top 30 finalists will receive P10,000.
Entries will be judged on the basis of visual composition (25%), originality (25%), adherence to the theme (25%), overall impact (15%), and suitability as cover (10%). The finalist that garners the most points, based on the judges’ score sheets and the online votes, will be declared the VAC 31 grand prize winner. The entry with the most number of online votes cast on www.visualarts.ph will be declared winner of the People’s Choice Award, which carries a cash prize of P15,000.
In VAC 30, Alfredo Martirez of Polytechnic University of the Philippines College of Architecture and Find Arts (PUP-CAFA) won the grand prize with his entry “History of Democracy,” interpreting the theme, “Rekindling People Power.” The second prize was won by John Merick Eupalao of Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP) in Silang, Cavite, and the third prize went to Artemio Bongawan, Jr. of the University of Mindanao.
A PUP-CAFA student, Arnica Acantilado, also won the grand prize in VAC 22 (2008-2009). Previous editions of the painting competition have been dominated by the Far Eastern University’s Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts with nine grand prize winners and the University of the East College of Fine Arts with three. Alongside PUP with two grand prize trophies so far are: Philippine Women’s University, Technological University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, and University of the Philippines – Diliman. AUP, Bulacan State University, St. Scholastica’s College, and University of Northern Philippines have each won the grand prize once so far.
About Directories Philippines Corporation
Directories Philippines Corporation (DPC) was incorporated on June 20, 1989 to assume the business of the Philippine Branch of GTE Directories of the United States. Since then, DPC has emerged as the dominant market leader in the directories advertising industry in Metro Manila and the other major urban centers across the country. It is also the official seller of Yellow Pages advertisements, a tried and tested vehicle for enterprises to reach ready buyers, in the Philippines.
Near the turn of the century, DPC took the Yellow Pages (YP) online and has since entered the mobile realm as well. Beyond being a multi-platform local search engine and a seller of ad space, the company has evolved into a marketing solutions company with a whole suite of value-added services—from call center assistance to mobile apps—to help advertisers, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs), reach and serve more customers.
Today, DPC publishes more than two million phone books which are distributed in Top 1000 corporations, SMEs, hotels, hospitals, schools, government offices, residential villages and condominiums. Around 8.4 million ready buyers, including corporate purchasing departments, nationwide—2.7 million of them in Metro Manila—look up the print Yellow Pages at least once a month for reliable suppliers of products and services.
In 2016, DPC introduced the Digital eBook, an electronically searchable version of the Metro Manila print YP, to extend the reach and utility of this precious resource among ready buyers.
The online YP, www.yellow-pages.ph, gets 1.5 million page views from more than 500,000 ready buyers every month. Optimized for mobile devices, it can be accessed via smartphones and tablets. The Yellow Pages PH App can be downloaded via the Google Play Store and Apple iTunes.
About Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company
PLDT is the leading telecommunications and digital services provider in the Philippines. Through its principal business groups – fixed line, wireless and others – PLDT offers a wide range of telecommunications and digital services across the Philippines’ most extensive fiber optic backbone, and fixed line and cellular networks.
PLDT is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE:TEL) and its American Depositary Shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:PHI). PLDT has one of the largest market capitalizations among Philippinelisted companies.
When PLDT was incorporated and given the franchise to establish and operate telephone services in the country on November 28, 1928, a typhoon had just ravaged Eastern Visayas, Bicol Peninsula, and Samar. The ability to communicate amongst loved ones and across the country became crucial. Sadly, phone networks then were like disconnected intercom systems and you could only call people within your own small city. Filipinos were disconnected from neighboring towns, disconnected from friends in the other island and, needless to say, disconnected from the rest of the world. It was under this scenario that the law was signed giving birth to PLDT.
What the new law hoped to achieve was to interconnect these "intercom" systems into a seamless nationwide network that would facilitate communication and delivery of services to the people, as well as spur economic development in the countryside.
In 1968, PLDT became a Filipino-controlled corporation when Ramon Cojuangco and his group of Filipino industrialists and businessmen bought the controlling stake of GTE of New York. This paved the way for massive investments and technological innovations in areas like satellite communications, direct distance dialing, cellular telephony and fiber optics.
In November 1998, Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd. acquired a 17.5-percent controlling stake in PLDT. The following year, PLDT forged a strategic partnership with NTT Communications Corp (NTTCom), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. of Japan, the world's leading telecommunications company in terms of revenues. Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), the country's largest mobile phone operator, was also acquired by PLDT.
Today, PLDT leads the wireless race, dominates the landline domain, operates the premier satellite company, and has raced to the No. 1 position in the Internet business. Amid all the technological changes, PLDT has remained committed to serving the nation and providing communications solutions to Filipinos.
