CEBU, Philippines - Filinvest, in partnership with East West Bank, held a one-night photo exhibit last May 26, 6pm at the Marriott Hotel Ballroom for the benefit of the Streetchildren Foundation of Cebu City. The exhibit featured underwater photography of the famous Erwin Lim and Hitoshi Onozawa.
Cebu-based Erwin Lim is a dentist by profession and is a photographer who contributes to Mabuhay Magazine. He has won numerous photography awards, including Best Photo in the Association of South East Asian Nations Tourism Association, grand prize in the Sinulog 2008 photo contest and awards across the three categories in Sinulog 2009 photo contest.
Hitoshi Onozawa, meanwhile, is a Japanese national who comes from a family of divers. He started diving in 1964 and has been into underwater photography for the last 40 years and underwater videography for the last 30 years. He specializes in underwater photos particularly in Davao and Cebu areas, but has been diving all over the Philippines and Asia.
For a token price of P1,000, guests could buy a photo of their choice and the proceeds went to the streetchildren foundation. Some photos were also raffled off to lucky guests.
According to FLI Vice President for Visayas and Mindanao, Tristan Las Marias, it is part of the FLI’s corporate social responsibility to come up with environmental projects. One of FLI’s projects in Davao is the Kembali Coast Residential Beach Resort that boasts of its own marine sanctuary.