PCIJ director one of seven ’03 Ramon Magsaysay awardees

Sheila Coronel, the executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), and six other eminent individuals from India, China, Japan and East Timor will receive the 2003 Ramon Magsaysay Award, organizers announced yesterday.

Coronel, a board member of the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance, is being given the award for journalism, literature and creative communication arts for "her leading a groundbreaking collaborative effort to develop investigative journalism as a critical component of democratic discourse in the Philippines."

"As leader of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, she is strengthening her country’s Fourth Estate," says an advanced copy of the Ramon Magsaysay Award citation for Coronel released yesterday. Coronel and eight "like-minded" journalists founded the PCIJ in 1989, and she has been at its helm ever since except for one year.

The PCIJ "plumbed the state of the nation" by probing bids by rogue soldiers and their political allies to overthrow then President Corazon Aquino, exposing the participation of military men and government officials in illegal logging operations, analyzing the entrenched grip of political clans and bosses in local politics, and exposing endemic corruption in the Supreme Court, in the Cabinet, in government agencies and newsrooms, the citation says.

"The Center spared no legitimate target and, year by year, it gained credibility. This became clear when PCIJ’s scrupulous reporting played a key role in scrutinizing the anomalies of Joseph Estrada’s presidency and helped set the stage for the (then) president’s eventual impeachment and dramatic ouster," it continues.

In an interview with The STAR, Coronel said, "This is great news for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and a validation of the value of investigative journalism."

"We are especially pleased that the award recognizes the role investigative reporting plays in strengthening democracy. The award also reaffirms what we’ve always believed in: that good journalism is careful, collaborative, and painstaking work," said Coronel who became executive director of the center "only by default."

The citation notes Coronel’s "probing stories presented in flawless English," many of which appeared in The New York Times and The Guardian of London and Manchester. Rare for local journalists, Coronel had done graduate studies, holding a master’s in political sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The board of trustees of the award foundation also announced yesterday that James Michael Lyngdoh, India’s chief election commissioner, is being given the award for government service for "his convincing validation of free and fair elections as the foundation and best hope of secular democracy in strife-torn India."

Awardee for public service this year is Dr. Gao Yaojie, a retired gynecologist turned AIDS activists from China, who is being recognized for her "fervent personal crusade to confront the AIDS crisis in China and to address it humanely."

Also from India, Shantha Sinha is the recipient of the community leadership award for her "guiding the people of Andra Pradesh to end the scourge of child labor and send all of their children to school."

Dr. Tetsu Nakamura, of Japan, is being honored for peace and international understanding for his "passionate commitment to ease the pains of war, diseases, and calamity among refugees and the mountain poor of the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands." Nakamura leads a volunteer service program in the two countries.

Similarly being cited for peace and international understanding is Japanese soil agriculturist and environmentalist, Seiei Toyama, for his "twenty-year crusade to green the deserts of China in a spirit of solidarity and peace."

East Timorese Aniceto Guterres Lopes, the chairman of the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation, will receive the award for emergent leadership for his "courageous stand for justice and the rule of law during East Timor’s turbulent passage to nationhood."

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, was established in 1957 to honor the memory and leadership exemplified by the former Philippine president. It is awarded annually to individuals or organizations in Asia who manifest "the same sense of selfless service that ruled (Magsaysay’s) life."

This year’s awardees join 229 other laureates to date. Each of them will receive a certificate, a medallion bearing the image of Magsaysay, and a cash prize to be formally conferred on Aug. 31 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

This year’s seven awardees will deliver public lectures at the Ramon Magsaysay Center from Aug. 28 to Sept. 2.