December 9, 1998. This day is a memorable day in the Internet history of the Philippines. The first national award-giving body for excellent websites, the 1st Philippine Webby Awards (brought to you by WS Computer Publishing Group / IDG and The Web Philippines) is happening.
The 1998 Philippine Webby Awards is patterned after the US Webby Awards that was first launched in 1996 (Post-edit- later on they have to rename it as The Philippine Web Awards as they probably weren’t allowed to use Webby Awards. – Inday).
Feel free to repost this image.
The night was full of people I consider very cool and ‘gods’ of the Philippine internet industry then: Alastair Israel, Yehey founder, Jim Ayson, creator of PhilMusic.com, and many more. They make these really cool and sophisticated websites and it is intimidating to be in the same event with them. I was simply an unknown webmaster of the Donna Cruz website (a fansite from 1996-1997 that became Donna Cruz’s official website in 1998).
…Yes I won– the Donna Cruz website won as People’s Choice for Best Film/Celebrity site (it is also one of the 5 finalists)
This is the nominee icon of the 1998 Philippine Webby Awards.
Towards the end of the night, I was very honored to have this picture beside them– yes I won– the Donna Cruz website won as People’s Choice for Best Film/Celebrity site (it is also one of the 5 finalists). (Post-edit: I wish I can go back in time and bring my iPhone to take better pictures and videos of the event. Most people who have pictures probably had their hard disks crashed by now and have not much pictures left of the 1998 event).
In the awards night they did a short feature/mention of the Bert is Evil website which is the first site made by a Filipino (well he’s probably an American citizen, I’m not sure), Dino Ignacio, who won in the Webby Awards in the US.
The full list of winners of the 1st Philippine Webby Awards can be found in the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20110107081940/http://www.theweb.com.ph:80/1st-philippine-web-awards-1998/