MANILA, Philippines?Time was when awards were deeply appreciated because they recognized outstanding achievement and set high standards. These days in the movies and the broadcast media, however, awards are sometimes handed out, for all the wrong reasons, to undeserving recipients.

This is due to the fact that some people want to have it all?both popularity and dubious ?honors? to shine up their compromised reputations.

This being largely the case, the viewing and listening public should be very careful about choosing the awards they believe in. Otherwise, they?ll be admiring people who aren?t all that admirable!

Worse, young comers will strive to emulate ?winners? who really haven?t achieved much.

Standards

Alas, standards of excellence have been lowered to accommodate the less than excellent, and we?re all the poorer for it.

So, how do we protect ourselves against the tainted ?awardees?? A good touchstone is to believe in awards that aren?t sought, lobbied for and/or bought by their ?winners.?

A good example of this: The Magsaysay Awards, some of the winners of which are surprised to learn that, without their knowledge, they have been observed and evaluated?and found deserving of the signal honor.

Another award, handed out by the Union of Filipino Writers, also evaluates literary artists? work without their knowing that they?re up for consideration. ?And, as a past winner, let me tell you, there?s no better feeling than the one that comes from winning something you?ve done absolutely nothing to get.

Unfortunately, there are few such awards left these days, as too many undeserving people do anything and everything to ?win? trophies, not through hard and excellent work, but with astounding gumption.

Competence

That being the case, what else can we do to outwit the award ?buyers? at their game? You could look at the awards? board of judges. Do their names communicate experience, objectivity and competence to you? If not, take the awards they hand out with more than a grain of salt.

Having judged a lot of awards competitions, I can share with you that quite a lot of contenders use all sorts of pressure tactics to get jurors? nod. Basically, when that happens, I just make a negative mental note of it, because I believe that awards should be given out for excellent work, not for self-serving PR tactics.

Also watch out for awards that purport to honor ?best of the year? achievements, but don?t actually view or listen to all of the work in the field being covered.

The best way to protect yourself against compromised awards is to realize that a number of awards these days are flawed, for one reason or other. So, we have no choice but to evaluate artists? work first-hand.

What if we don?t feel confident about our ability to evaluate superior work? We?ll just have to evaluate the different award competitions themselves, and come up with a rigorously abridged list of the honors we feel are reliable, and react only to their verdicts.