Lifestyle
Aklanon Public Servant Awarded With the Inaugural Gawad Jacinto
Kalibo, Aklan councilor and poet Phillip Yerro Kimpo was recently named as one of two inaugural recipients of the Gawad Jacinto – LIRA, the highest award given by the national cultural and literary organization Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA).
The award is named after Emilio Jacinto, one of the nation’s heroes, a poet, warrior, revolutionary, and paragon for the Filipino youth.
Kimpo was the president of LIRA from 2009 to 2015, during which he led the group to being declared as one of the Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) in Malacanang Palace.
During the same span, he served as the director of a nationwide literacy outreach program that ultimately served around 3,500 beneficiaries in 35 locations across the archipelago. He has continued to advocate “voluntourism,” or volunteerism combined with tourism, in his stint as editor-in-chief of ABS-CBN Choose Philippines (2014-15), and in his two terms as legislator and community volunteer in his hometown of Kalibo (2016-present).
In the field of literature, Kimpo is the first and only Aklanon to win the Grand Prize of the Maningning Miclat Poetry Awards, one of the country’s major literary awards. His poems have also won twice in the Talaang Ginto of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (“Makata ng Taon” contest).
In 2020, the Province of Aklan through a Resolution of Commendation described Kimpo as “Aklan’s poet-laureate of his generation.”
Kimpo has published nine books, including his first poetry collection, titled “alattala” (NCCA, 2020). He is also the author of Aklan’s official tourism coffeetable book, titled “Aklan: Land of the Finest, Land of the Fervent.”
[Writeup prepared by The Aklan Literati (AkLit).]
