MANILA, Philippines -- INQUIRER.net managing editor Jose Marte A. Abueg bagged the grand prize in the poetry English division of the Gawad Likhaan: UP Centennial Literary Awards, its organizers announced.

Abueg won the award for his collection of poems “Bird Lands, River Nights and Other Melancholies,” the University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing said in a statement.

Abueg, a graduate of the UP School of Economics, is also the overall editor-in-charge of INQUIRER.net's Money section. He has won other awards, like the Carlos Palanca Awards and the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards.

Criselda D. Yabes, a freelance journalist and writer who has worked for the Associated Press, Reuters, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The Economist, won in the fiction and creative nonfiction division for her novel, “Below the Crying Mountain,” and her nonfiction narrative, “Sarena’s Story: The Loss of a Kingdom”.

In the Filipino division, the winners are: Jerry B. Gracio (poetry, for his collection, “Aves”); Jose Rey Munsayac (fiction, for his novel, “Duguang Kamay sa Nilulumot na Pader”; and Lualhati M. Abreu (creative nonfiction, for “Agaw Dilim, Agaw Liwanag”).

The UP Centennial Commission set up and funded the Gawad Likhaan as part of the UP Centennial Celebrations to highlight the state university’s contribution to the advancement of Philippine letters.

Award ceremonies will be held on Tuesday, July 8, at 4:30 p.m. at the Pulungang Claro M. Recto, Faculty Center, UP Diliman. The affair is open to the public.