Maria Clara Awards

Maria Clara Awards
Awarded for	Excellence in cinematic achievements
Country	Philippines
Presented by	Manila Times Publishing, Co. (1951-1952), a group led by Col. Jimmy Tiu (2006)
First awarded	1951
Last awarded	2006

The Maria Clara Awards is the first formal film industry award-giving body of the Philippines. It was established in 1950 by a group of writers from the Manila Times Publishing, Co., which included National Artist Dr. Alejandro Roces, regarded as the Father of the Maria Clara Awards. It was the initial answer of the Philippines to Hollywood's Academy Awards, an institution for recognizing talents in the Filipino movie industry.

After World War II ended, the two pre-war movie studios, LVN and Sampaguita Pictures, resumed their movie production and were later joined by two other movie studios, Premiere Productions and Lebran International, to form the "Big Four" studios who held the brightest stars and top artisans of Philippine movies in the 1950s and 1960s.

The first formal Filipino answer to the Oscars was formed by Manila Times Publishing, Co. To make a statuette which would be given out to the best of the best, National Artist Guillermo Tolentino was asked to sculpt the bronze Maria Clara Award, which bore the likeness of Maria Clara, one of the characters in Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere.

Due to various reactions about the voting procedures of the Maria Claras (various factions have pointed out that the Maria Claras were voted on mostly by movie columnists), a group of movie writers, Atty. Flavio G. Macaso (who became the first president of FAMAS), future FAMAS president Vic Generoso, future FAMAS winner Mario Mijares Lopez, Paulo Dizon, Amado Yasoma and Eddie Infante established what would become as the second oldest film industry award-giving body in Asia, the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences or FAMAS. With the creation of FAMAS, the Maria Claras folded up.

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Wikipedia