Transforming societies

A few days after the nation celebrated Heroes’ Day, five individuals and a group were honored for their contributions to society that like heroic acts are worth emulating.

Last Thursday, the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Awards were formally conferred on Yoshiaki Ishizawa of Japan, Lilia de Lima of the Philippines, Abdon Nababan of Indonesia, Gethsie Shanmugam of Sri Lanka, Tony Tay of Singapore, and the Philippine Educational Theater Association of PETA. The awards, named after the third Philippine president whose service was tragically cut in a plane accident, are seen as the Asian Nobel prize.

Ishizawa, a scholar who later became president of Sophia University in Japan, dedicated 50 years of his life to preserving a world treasure outside his country: the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, which was endangered by civil war. Working with communities and experts in the two countries, Ishizawa has helped preserve a world heritage.

De Lima is being honored for her record – rare in the Philippines – of being an honest, competent and reform-oriented public servant. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority, which she served for 21 years, became a bright spot in the scandal-prone, graft-ridden and inefficient bureaucracy, making the country attractive for job-generating investments.

Nababan, a Toba Batak from Sumatra, is recognized for his strategic role in promoting the welfare of the indigenous peoples in Indonesia. Over 24 years, he has moved to identify the IPs in his country and make them aware of their rights and heritage. His IP movement has become a major political force.

Shanmugam, a teacher in Colombo, became interested in psychology and was touched by the hidden costs of the bloody civil war in her country. Three decades of war in Sri Lanka left about 100,000 dead and hundreds of thousands more detained, tortured, abused and displaced. Shanmugan dedicated her work to counseling – and training counselors – to ease the psychosocial trauma of violence.

Tay was born into poverty in prosperous Singapore and had to scrounge for food as he grew up. Through hard work, he managed to pull himself out of poverty. At 57 when his mother died, he was inspired by her work with the Canosian Sisters. In 2003 he launched a “one hot meal revolution” that was named “Willing Hearts,” providing food daily to Singapore’s abandoned or neglected elderly, persons with disabilities, the sick, low-income families, migrant workers and children of single-parent households.

PETA, now 50 years old, received the award for turning the theater arts into a force for social change, for empowering communities by raising awareness on social issues through the arts.

All these stories provide inspiration in working to transform societies for the greater good.