THE Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation resumes the awards this year, presenting a new batch of transformative leaders from Asia who will be carrying on the legacy of those who came before them.
Aurelio Montinola III, chairman of the board of trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, has announced that four inspiring leaders and one transformative organization are this year’s recipients of the premier prize and highest honor as Magsaysay Awardees.
First on the list is Roberto Ballon, a Filipino, who has served as an inspiration not only to his fellow fisherfolks but other members of his community as well for his determination to revive a dying fishing industry through the creation of a sustainable marine environment.
Ballon has been acknowledged as a shining example of how everyday acts of heroism can be extraordinary and transformative.
The Foundation is likewise feting Southeast Asia’s Steven Muncy for his unshakable belief in the goodness of man, which has ignited a spark among the people around him to serve others; his life-long dedication to humanitarian work, refugee assistance, and peace building; and his unstinting pursuit of dignity, peace, and harmony for people in exceptionally difficult circumstances in Asia.
The passion and life-long devotion to the scientific profession has earned Firdausi Qadri from Bangladesh a spot this year. The Foundation acknowledges her vision of building the human and physical infrastructure that will benefit the coming generation of Bangladeshi scientists, women scientists in particular, and her untiring contributions to vaccine development, advanced biotechnological therapeutics and critical research that has been saving millions of precious lives.
Muhammad Amjad Saqib from Pakistan is being recognized for “his intelligence and compassion that enabled him to create the largest microfinance institution in Pakistan, his inspiring belief that human goodness and solidarity will find ways to eradicate poverty, and his determination to stay with a mission that has already helped millions of Pakistani families.”
The Foundation is likewise crediting Watchdoc, Indonesia as an emerging leader in an organization known for its highly principled crusade for an independent media organization, its energetic use of investigative journalism, documentary filmmaking, and digital technology in its effort to transform Indonesia’s media landscape, and its commitment to a vision of the people themselves as makers of media and shapers of their own world.”
Like the other Magsaysay laureates before them, Susan Afan, president at the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, said this year’s recipients have shown moral courage and impassioned insistence on making the societies that they serve better, kinder and more equitable for everyone, especially for the marginalized.
According to Afan, the Foundation did not have any winners last year due to COVID-19. There were only two other occasions in the Foundation’s 63-year history that fateful events like this happened — the 1970 global financial crisis and the 1990 great Luzon earthquake.
For the last six decades, the Foundation has offered to the world some of the most remarkable women and men from Asia, the Magsaysay laureates.
Should the pandemic circumstances improve, the formal conferment of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards is planned to be held at the Ramon Magsaysay Center on November 28, 2021.
August 31 has traditionally been a very special date for the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation as it commemorates the birth anniversary of Ramon Magsaysay, the seventh president of the Philippines, as well as his remarkable servant leadership that earned him the title “President of the Masses.”
It is also a day of celebration as the Foundation holds up in highest esteem former president Magsaysay’s enduring values of service and ethical leadership, and how these values are replicated yearly through the laureates and now the next generation leaders that it is nurturing as future leaders of Asia.
