R. Magsaysay awards

Every August 31, the Ramon Magsaysay award, the Asian counterpart of the Nobel Prize, is given to individuals or institutions in Asia deemed worthy of it, regardless of race, creed, sex or nationality. Lamentably, Luz Banzon Magsaysay died just a few weeks before the awarding rites.

In April of 1957, the year RM perished in a plane crash, the NY-based trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund established the award in agreement with the Philippine government "to perpetuate Ramon Magsaysay’s integrity in government, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society".

Former Commonwealth President Sergio Osmeña and Exequiel Magsaysay, RM’s father, served respectively as honorary chairman and vice chairman of the RM Award Foundation trustees in May of that same year. Belen H. Abreu, then legal counsel of the Commission on Elections, was executive trustee.

Today, the awards program is managed by a board of trustees composed of nine Filipinos on staggered four-year terms. An appointed president is program administrator; Carmencita T. Abella is RMAF president.

Filipino recipients for public service include Cecile Guidote Alvarez, founder of the Philippine Educational Theater Association, Gilopez Kabayao who was – and still is – spreading classic music in gyms, cockpits, schools and other popular venues.

Hilario G. Davide, now SC Chief Justice, received the award for government service, as did Jesse Robredo and Sen. Miriam D. Santiago. Recipients for community leadership were Rosario Encarnacion, Silvino Encarnacion, Pablo Torres Tapia (all deceased) and Eva Fidela Maamo.

For Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, awardees were the late Nick Joaquin and Lino Brocka, Francisco Sionil Jose, Sheila Coronel, Zacarias Sarian and Fr. James B. Reuter, SJ who, though not a Filipino, is one at heart. For International Understanding, recipients were former President Corazon C. Aquino and Washington Sycip who is listed as American.

For this year’s Government Service award, no one deserves it more than Haydee Yorac, role model for current government officials including, exceptions granted, politicians, senators and congressman.

If they were earnestly concerned with the ongoing economic crisis, and the tragic fact that the government loses billions of pesos to corruption, they would, as Sen. Panfilo Lacson suggests, forgo their pork barrel funds which, for the most part, end in private pockets for the building of mansions and for junkets abroad combined with shopping sprees.

The following excerpts from Ms. Yorac’s citation should lead corrupt politicians to mend their ways for the sake of the country and people:

"Democracy has deep roots in the Philippines, yet its authority continues to be tested. Years of dictatorship, graft in high places, and the corruption of the electoral process by ‘goons, guns and gold’ have left many Filipinos cynical not only about democracy but about government itself – all the more because government seems reputedly to fall short of its promises and goals. In such a climate, service in government can be thankless. Yet, Haydee Yorac, a lawyer and professor of law, has repeatedly answered the call to serve. In doing so, she has confounded the cynics and shown that even the most intractable problems can yield to solutions if they are attacked honestly and with vigor.

"As a young law instructor at her alma mater (UP), she became politically active and opposed the Vietnam War. When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, she was jailed for four months, then moved to the forefront of the legal fight to restore democracy. People came to know her as outspoken, incorruptible and fearless.

"After the People Power Revolution of 1986, Yorac served seven years as a national election commissioner, organizing elections in contested, far-flung areas, and lending her considerable reputation to the hopeful project of restoring integrity to the electoral process. As chair of the National Unification Commission in 1992-93, she met face-to-face with the government’s armed opponents and astutely identified grounds for negotiation and peace; her commission’s insightful report became a trusted blueprint for the country’s peace process. Yorac then shifted to private practice for several years until, in 2001, she was named chair of the PCGG.

"President Aquino created the PCGG in her very first executive order. Its mandate was to restore to the Philippines vast amounts of wealth stolen by Marcos and his family and friends, a difficult task. The PCGG launched case after case and the years passed. By the time Yorac was named its eleventh chair, it had recovered only two billion out of an estimated ten billion dollars of the Marcos hoard. Many people said that the PCGG was on a fool’s errand. Yorac proved them wrong.

"Advancing on all fronts, she strengthened the staff with talented young lawyers. She cultivated good working relations with the PCGG’s collaborating agencies. She brought order to its chaotic files, computerizing them for the first time. And she stoked the fires under hundreds of stalled cases and long-running legal battles.

"Stunning victories followed. On her watch, the PCGG successfully recovered some $684 million from Marcos’s Swiss bank accounts, and received this for the national treasury. It also secured court decisions favorable to the government with regard to billions of pesos of UCPB and SM Corporation shares. These are the biggest triumphs since the Commission’s establishment, a boon both for the Philippine agrarian reform program and, not incidentally, for the country’s faith in justice."