Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation Distinguished Guests, Fellow Awardees and Dear Friends.
Agkanggayan! Peace to one and all!
I stand here before this esteemed gathering today grateful yet awed for this recognition you have given me. It is wholly undeserved as I am aware that there are others out there, hundreds of men and women who live lives of dedicated service to the indigenous peoples, who are more deserving than I am in receiving this award. In honor of their quiet and oftentimes, unrecognized work, I dedicate this award first and foremost.
In giving me this award, the Foundation affirms its conviction that only a life dedicated to others is a life truly worth living. I see myself, therefore, not so much as a model that can inspire others to a life of service, but as a channel of that one eternal message that brings life and hope to people -- which says: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
My life and work these past fifteen years serve as testimony of my great love for the Mangyan people of Mindoro, the Lumads and the Muslims of Mindanao. Greater still, I am here before you today as a witness to the kind of love I have received from them, our indigenous peoples and Muslim brothers and sisters.
It is their love that has spurned me on to dream the dreams they have nurtured through generations -- of a better life for themselves and their children. It is their love that continues to make me courageous in the face of the myriad of challenges I encounter in bringing education, peace, and development to the indigenous peoples and Muslim communities.
I want to thank all the indigenous peoples and Muslims I have lived and worked with, especially you who are connected with the TUGDAAN Center for Human and Environmental Development, ILAWAN Center for Peace and Sustainable Development, and the Assisi Development Foundation. In loving me, I have learned a love that serves. In leading me to discover my life's mission, I have learned the essential lessons in leadership. From you I have learned that to lead people is to share in their lives and to hold their deepest aspirations as my own.
I receive this award in recognition also of the Mangyan leaders who shared with me their vision and dreams for their communities and children. Fifteen years ago they dreamed of having a program that would equip their communities to face the on-going changes in their lives while also promoting and enriching their culture as a people. Thus was created Tugdaan as a center that would respond to the Mangyan's clamor for an educational program that was relevant to their realities, culture and aspirations. To the Akingans who are here with us this afternoon and to all other Mangyan Alangan leaders, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This too is your award, for without the kind of leadership you have shown me, I could not have learned what it means to lead.
With this award, I recognize, too, the people who have been my mentors in learning about loving service and leadership. I would like to thank Sr. Victricia Pascassio, for her trust and confidence in my early years of mission work. I also want to thank the SSpS congregation and our partners and benefactors for their support in my work all these years.
I want to thank in a very special way Ambassador Howard Dee and the rest of the Assisi Development Foundation family for providing me a home and a place where I could continue in sharing dreams with others.
My deepest gratitude, also, to the men of the Society of Jesus, for the formation that has taught me the value of service, of being a man for others.
I want to thank my grandparents who have gone ahead of us. Their love and care throughout the years of my childhood has become the foundation of my life values.
And to my dearest of friends, you who have shared love, laughter, and tears with me as I journey through my life's mission -- thank you. You know who you are and what you mean to me. Thank you. Thank you.
I thank also the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for entrusting me with all that this award stands for. I pray that my life and work in the years to come may deserve the weight of this honor that you have so generously bestowed on me.
And finally, to the Almighty, I say thank you with all that I am. May it take me a lifetime and forever to express my gratitude.
Buwaywa! Sukran! Thank you and peace be with you.
