General Santos City has another reason to rejoice!

Once more, a General has just given prestige and honor not only to the city but to the whole Philippines as well. This young champion is Charles Andrew Flamiano, a 16 years old student of Notre Dame of Dadiangas University- IBED. Charles won the very prestigious Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s 2012 Global Film Competition under the category Faith Shorts.

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s Global Film Competition is an annual project of Former Prime Minister Tony Blair of England. The competition which is composed of different categories promotes tolerance and respect among the various faiths of the world.

Young film maker Charles Andrew Flamiano from General Santos City, Philippines (extreme right) with, Liat Har-Gill from Israel, and Mudit Muraka from India after receiving their trophies for winning the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s 2012 global film competition, Faith Shorts. With them is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair himself.

Charles, the winner in the 14-17 year category, won through his short film entry “Letting Go, Letting God”. His winning film is about “trusting God when faced with an adversity, like illness”.

When he found out that his film had won, Charles Andrew Flamiano said: “This award has been the greatest thing which has ever happened to me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to receive this award and to see this very lovely place. I would like to thank the judges for selecting my film my class mates who served as cast and crew and my family and my school for nurturing my faith since elementary years.”

A 15-year old student from New Delhi, India, Mudit Muraka won the Face to Faith Category with his film, “The Mirrors” while 25-year old Liat Har-Gill from Israel, bagged the championship with his “Deathbed, The Musical”.

Charles, along with them, received their awards at the famous 195 Piccadilly in London. It is where the British Academy of Film and Television Arts or famously known as BAFTA is staged yearly.  The awarding was done in the presence of Mr. Tony Blair himself, members of the entertainment and film industry, leaders from the religious sector and representatives of Wikipedia, Youtube and Goggle.

These films were judged by a global panel including Tony Blair, Jonathan Caplan QC, Hugh Jackman , Anil Kapoor, Jet Li, Wendi Deng Murdoch, Nik Powell , Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, June Sarpong, Deepak Verma, Dawn French, Lord David Puttnam of Queensgate C.B.E.. Duncan Kenworthy, His Excellency Dr. Mustafa Ceric, Gale Anne Hurd, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, Nick Jones, Pastor Rick Warren, Stu Levy and Sherry Lansing.

Check out Charles’ entry below, entitled “Letting Go, Letting God”.

From us here at GenSan News Online Mag, CONGRATULATIONS CHARLES!  Thank you for making us proud to be GENERALS once more!

Please share this by posting it on your Facebook and Twitter updates.  Let’s show to the world that indeed, GenSan is the Home of Champions!