Multi-awarded journalist and writer Ian Ocampo Flora has bagged the Grand Prize in the Kapampangan (Maikling Kuwento) category of the prestigious 2025 Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera National Literary Contest.
Flora’s winning entry, titled “Atut Judas,” was recognized for its creative excellence according to the official announcement from contest director Dr. Joey A. Tabula. The Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera National Literary Contest is organized by the National Committee on Literary Arts (NCLA) of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
The winning entries, including Flora’s short story, will also be compiled and published in an anthology to be released both in print and on the NCCA website.
Flora, regarded as one of the country’s most awarded young journalists, has received numerous recognitions in science, environment, agriculture, climate change, and food writing.
In 2023, he was named the Sorpresang Sangkap winner of the Mama Sita Foundation’s Mga Kwentong Pagkain competition for his feature story on food.
His contributions to science communication were also recognized when he won in the Bantog: The Science for the People Media Awards of the Department of Science and Technology — Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII) in 2018.
He was further honored as the Most Outstanding Kapampangan in the Field of Journalism in 2022, and has won multiple national awards, including the Brightleaf Journalism Awards and the PAJ-San Miguel Corp. “Binhi” Awards, where he garnered at least seven major awards and one minor citation. He is also a five-time winner of the Brightleaf Journalism Awards, a distinction that earned him the prestigious Oriental Leaf Award in 2019, placing him in the Brightleaf Hall of Fame.
Currently, Flora writes for Sun.Star Pampanga and teaches at the Graduate School of Don Honorio Ventura State University.
