MANILA — The University of the Philippines College of Media and Communication honored Thursday the life and work of the late superstar Nora Aunor.
Aunor was the recipient of the 2014 Gawad ng Plaridel, the highest and most prestigious award UP bestows to media personalities with an excellent body of work.
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In a social media post, UP College of Media and Communication re-published the citation honoring Aunor with the Gawad Plaridel.
"For portraying with intelligence and sensitivity an amazing number and types of characters on the silver screen, all of which earned for her the highest plaudits from critics and cinephiles from all levels of Philippine society," the citation read.
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"For challenging the colonial standards that privileged the mestiza as paragon of beauty in Filipino film and society and proving that the features of the kayumanggi— honey-gold skin, crow-black hair, and petite body — are as legitimate as any other, especially because in the Philippines the kayumanggi embodies the aesthetics of the Malay majority that has prevailed from the pre-colonial period to the present, from rural to urban, from slum to mansion," it added.
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The citation honored the late actress for her iconic roles in television and film, with a career spanning many decades.
"For using her tremendous popularity as a key to open to the masses who idolized her and identified with her origins, the world of sensible films and plays that dramatized and analyzed the abject conditions of the Filipino majority and the poor and powerless characters that she played with conviction and invested with a glimmer of hope in social change," it read.
Aunor was later recognized as a National Artist, which entitles her to a state funeral.
She passed away on Wednesday at the age of 71.
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