Philippine Asian News Today Vol 20 No 18 | Page 11

September 16 - 30, 2018
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
MUSIC, POETRY...
LOCAL NEWS
11
FROM PAGE 7
playing the violin.
Who
were
these
top
performers? Pilita Corrales, the first
Entertainer of the Year, was joined
by Entertainers of the Year Celeste
Legaspi, Martin Nievera, and Dulce,
and Lifetime Achievement Awardee
Spirit of ‘67, who celebrated their
25th year in 2017, Hall of Famers
The Angelos and Merjohn Lagaya,
and Special Awardee Halili-Cruz
Dance Company.
Aliw Awards Foundation,
Inc. (AAFI) is the first and only
award-giving body that recognizes
performers of all forms of live
entertainment. Singers, dancers,
instrumentalists,
emcees,
comedians, stage actors, musical
and non-musical directors, and
even festival participants compete
annually for the prestigious awards. Aliw’s Alice Reyes in red gown and Beth Sison Tagle, far left with some
AAFI has no counterpart here or members of the Inner Wheel Club district 381 in ‘The Best of Aliw.’
anywhere else in the world. The
Grammys are for recording, Oscars Health, according to Drilon.
can provide stability to our health
are for films, and Tonys for stage.
“If we will just follow system,” Drilon said.
And to think that AAFI started the proposed budget [for] the
But DOH Secretary Duque
42 years ago as an offshoot of Department of Health, about 15,000 says their budget is good enough
the National Press Club’s Socials nurses and health professionals will for them! The slashed amount
Committee, which handled the lose their jobs,” Drilon said after won’t take care of the 26,000 health
Friday Celebrity Nights, chair by grilling officials during the Senate workers, he added.
Alice Hernandez Reyes, then of Daily hearing on the proposed P71 billion
Drilon proposed that an
Express, under NPC presidents Ben budget of the DoH.
errata be submitted by the DBM
Rodriguez, Neal Cruz, Louie Logarta,
“This is a vey serious concern. “in order to correct this injustice,”
Pat Gonzales, and Tony Antonio.
I have never seen in my 20 years in saying that it should not be the
Alice tells me she was the Senate that a budget is slashed Senate scrambling to look for funds
prompted by a desire to give back this much and the budget of the to restore the budget, which can be
to the entertainers that performed DoH, at that,” Drilon said. “This
gratis et amore. I remember, being is injustice and I will not allow the
an NPC member, that even Matt budget to be passed unless this
Monro performed for the Celebrity injustice is addressed,” he added.
Night bashes for free!
At the hearing, Drilon grilled
“It has been a long and hard a representative from the DBM for
journey, sometimes heartbreaking cutting the budget of the DoH by
for lack of support of those who P36.2 billion from P107.3 billion
c