For many developing countries around the world, universal health coverage (UHC) remains an elusive dream. Poor people living in the countryside are often the most affected, with little or no access to the most basic health services.

For Thailand—now an upper middle-income economy—this is no longer true. UHC was finally implemented in 2002, and it has since been hailed as a system that offers largely free medical care to Thai citizens.

But UHC and other landmark achievements in Thai healthcare did not happen overnight. Rather, they were the result of decades of struggle waged by progressive, visionary, and dedicated Thai physicians in both professional and political arenas to secure adequate and affordable healthcare for their people, especially the rural poor.

Those doctors bonded together in what has since been called the RURAL DOCTORS MOVEMENT (RDM)—a combination of the Rural Doctor Society (RDS) and the Rural Doctor Foundation (RDF). While many doctors belong to both, the RDS is an informal and more flexible organization, and the RDF is a formal NGO comprising doctors working in public hospitals.

The emergence of the RDM reflects the changes and the needs in Thai society, particularly since the 1960s when, as in other developing countries, many Thai medical professionals left for greener pastures in the United States. The resulting brain drain forced the government in 1967 to impose compulsory service for medical professionals in the rural areas in return for their subsidized education. This exposed them to the harsh realities of life in the countryside, making them acutely aware of the need for corrective policies.

At the same time, in the early 1970s, a pro-democracy movement swept Thailand, advocating for greater freedom and socio-economic justice. Many idealistic young doctors joined this movement, seeing in it an opportunity to redress the inequities they saw in Thai society. They organized medical teams for the student protesters, and in 1974, students were sent to the countryside to study poverty and inadequate healthcare.

Their experience and awakening are best expressed by former president of RDS, Vichai Chokevivat, who recalls that “When I was a rural doctor, I saw many people taken ill and becoming almost penniless. They had to sell their farmland or even their daughter to get enough money to pay for their medical treatment. It was such a painful and bitter experience that we dreamt of providing free medical care to the sick.”

In 1978, following the brutal suppression of the student movement, many medical students sought refuge in rural areas, strengthening their ties to their host communities. To be able to continue to operate under the new regime, the Rural Doctor Federation became the RDS. Later still, in 1982, many of the same doctors behind the RDS organized and registered RDF as a formal umbrella for their programs.

Some prominent RDS leaders—among them Chokevivat, Choochai Supawongse, Kriengsak Vacharanukulkieti, Supat Hasuwannakit, and the late Sanguan Nitayarumphong—had activist backgrounds, and the RDS continued to fight for greater civil liberties and against corruption in the 1990s. However, it never lost sight of its main goals: to support medical and public health services in rural areas, disseminate medical and public health information, and boost the morale and spirit of rural doctors.

Through their influence in health governance, RDS doctors continue to advocate for policy reforms. Through the more formal RDF, progressive healthcare programs are implemented more effectively utilizing official channels. The RDF also networks with other NGOs such as those for nurses and pharmacists as well as the World Health Organization and other international agencies.

The impact of the movement on Thai society is clear, palpable, and enduring. Thailand’s rural doctors have demonstrated how vital adequate and affordable healthcare is to social justice, how necessary democracy is in creating the best environment for positive social change, and how the spirit of volunteerism can achieve superlative results.

In electing the RURAL DOCTORS MOVEMENT to receive the 2024 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes their historic and continuing contribution to their people’s health—and perhaps just as importantly, to their recognition and fulfillment as citizens with basic rights. By championing the rural poor, the movement made sure to leave no one behind as the nation marches forward to greater economic prosperity and modernization.

As far as we know, in the 66 years history, the Ramon Magsaysay Award have always been given to individuals or organizations. It is our great honor to be the first movement to receive this recognition.

The Thai Rural Doctors Movement emerged alongside the Democracy Movement of students and citizens in the mid-1960s. During that period, Thailand faced a severe shortage of doctors in rural areas, exacerbated by the brain drain to the United States. Thus, the Ministry of Public Health had to implement a compulsory policy for medical students to work in rural areas for three years after graduation.

This policy made newly graduated doctors face hardships in the rural hospitals. They have begun to unite their efforts to support each other and to provide better healthcare for rural people in the scarcity of resources and disparity in the country. The “Rural Doctor Federation” was established in 1976 for these reasons and re-named as the “Rural Doctor Society” in 1978. Three years later, the “Rural Doctor Foundation” was founded to be the official organization of our movement. This is the beginning of our movement to reform Thailand’s healthcare system.

After the victory of students and citizens in the democracy movement in October 1973 against the military government, we saw the opportunity to improve our society and we pushed one of the articles into the constitution that emphasized the importance of public health, mandating that “the state provide free healthcare to the poor and requiring the state to offer free services for the control and prevention of dangerous communicable diseases.” This provision has remained in every subsequent Thai constitution, despite several coups de’tat.

This provision and the development of the health infrastructure were the crucial foundations that enabled us to establish the Universal Health Coverage system successfully in 2002.

Though the accessibility to health facilities has been improved, we still saw many patients hesitated to get the treatment because they have no money to pay out of pocket. Some of the patients when they have a serious health condition, they ask the doctor to send them back home even though they should be transferred to get better medical treatment. So, the universal health coverage program was our holy grail as it will bring people to the equity of healthcare.

To achieve this, we did the research, set the agenda, and communicated the suffering of sick people to society. We campaigned and created policy advocacy strategies. And when there was the election in 2001. The window of opportunity was opened for us, and the Thai-Rak-Thai party got interested in this policy and put it into their campaign. After the Thai-Rak-Thai government was formed. The universal health coverage policy was implemented.

But the task of our movement was not yet finished. We continue working hard to decrease the resistance, improve the benefit packages, cooperate with health professionals, raise their spirit to work in the underserved areas, and most importantly, be the watchdog for corruption.

Recently, when COVID-19 struck Bangkok, we set up “the Rural Doctors Rescue Bangkok operation” to screen and give treatment in the capital. Our mobilization of rural doctors has helped many urban poor through that hard period.

Our spirit of contributing to the equity of society aligns with the ideology of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, who believed that “those who have less in life should have more in law.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, Working for the people to reduce inequality is a never-ending mission. Receiving the Ramon Magsaysay Award confirms that the Thai Rural Doctors Movement are on the right path and serves as a significant encouragement for us to continue forward. We believe that universal health coverage is crucial, and we would like to see every country make a strong effort to achieve universal health coverage in the near future.

Thank you very much.

A predominantly Muslim region in a staunchly Buddhist country, southern Thailand has struggled with religious and ethnic conflict since a separatist insurgency rocked the region in 1948.  Insurgency and militarization have exacted a heavy toll: it is reported that of the more than 6,000 people killed in the conflict since 2004, some ninety percent of these were civilians. These deaths have included the unsolved killings of more than thirty civil society and human rights activists.  One of the more sensational of these killings was the “enforced disappearance” in 2004 of noted human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, who was abducted in Bangkok the day after he had publicly accused the military of torturing detainees in southern Thailand.

Somchai’s enforced disappearance and subsequent death was a tragic blow to the cause of human rights in the country, and a devastating personal nightmare for his family.  But it would also be the beginning of a remarkable journey for Somchai’s widow, ANGKHANA NEELAPAIJIT, herself a Muslim Thai of humble origins. When her husband “disappeared” ANGKHANA was a housewife looking after their five young children and a small business. Thrust into a dangerous and public controversy, she valiantly worked to bring the police officers involved to trial, but due to a flawed justice system they were acquitted.  Despite the death threats she received, ANGKHANA continued to seek justice for her husband and other human rights victims.  She applied herself to learning the laws, filing legal appeals, and navigating the Thai legal system.  She bonded with other victims, and worked with civil society groups in and outside Thailand.

In 2009, with the help of non-government organizations and her own family, ANGKHANA founded Justice for Peace Foundation (JPF), a network of human rights and peace advocates that has done important work in documenting the human rights situation in southern Thailand, thus raising public awareness and putting pressure on government to act on human rights cases; providing legal assistance to victims; and training women on human rights and the peace process.  In a vital initiative, JPF and other groups pushed for laws that will criminalize torture and enforced disappearances (current Thai law recognizes murder only if the body could be found). Their steadfast lobbying succeeded in getting the Thai government to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2007, and the Convention to Protect All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2012—already major victories even though the implementing rules have yet to be issued.

In 2015, ANGKHANA was named commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, the only commission member with grassroots human rights experience.  Despite the skepticism of government critics, ANGKHANA has taken her appointment seriously, firmly committed to taking the peaceful, legal approach to fighting human rights abuses and to doing what she can in “pushing the limits.”  Quietly non-confrontational, she does not waver in speaking her mind against injustice. As commissioner, she has successfully interceded with the authorities for detainees to have access to lawyers and their families, and for victims to get financial compensation.  She firmly took action on cases of arbitrary arrest and detention and the exercise of freedom of expression and assembly.  She has widened her advocacy to address problems like forced child marriages, trafficking of women, and the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.  ANGKHANA’s term as commissioner ended in July 2019, but there is no doubt she will remain involved in human rights advocacy.  This is for her a deeply personal advocacy.

People have marveled at the transformation of this self-effacing housewife into a leading human rights defender.  But ANGKHANA herself is not surprised.  In her soft-spoken and measured tone she asserts: “Most women experience conflict and violence in a different way than men.  They also develop unique skills for resisting, addressing and preventing conflict.  The work on justice and peace cannot afford to neglect the constructive contributions of women.”

In electing ANGKHANA NEELAPAIJIT to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her unwavering courage in seeking justice for her husband and many other victims of violence and conflict in southern Thailand; her systematic, unflagging work to reform a flawed and unfair legal system, and the shining she is proof that the humblest ordinary person can achieve national impact in deterring human rights abuses.

Today is one of the biggest days of my life. I am truly humbled and proud to stand before such honorable guests to accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award. I would like to express my sincerest appreciation and thanks to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this honor.

For me, the honor I receive today is not a symbol of victory, or the end of my and other survivors’ struggles for rights and justice. It represents a recognition of the continuing struggle for human rights, justice, freedom, democracy and the rule of law of all survivors of human rights abuses in my country and in our region. Also, it means that the voice of victims should be heard.

As a survivor of a human rights violation and a woman human rights defender, I realize that rights, dignity and human values are very important to all human beings. The continuation of the culture of impunity, militarization, failure of the justice system and the social acceptance of those violations are crucial contexts that have kept many victims live in suffering and fear.

While leading a civil society organization, I had the opportunity to work with many vulnerable groups, especially the vulnerable of the vulnerable such as victims of human rights violations in Southern Thailand, most of whom are women, refugees and asylum seekers or grievous women who are victims of gender-based violence. As a former human rights commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, I had the opportunity to work mostly on civil and political rights and women’s rights. I found that many human rights challenges faced by Thailand and other Asian countries—such as violent extremism, poverty, refugee crisis, absence or lack of freedom of expression—are only the tip of the iceberg.

Colleagues, history tells us again and again of the impact that ordinary heroes bring. Extraordinary in their courage, determination and commitment they serve as evidence that every one of us can make a difference to stand for what is right and just. Each and every one of us has a choice to work to promote the upside rather than the downside of humanity. We all have a sense of responsibility towards each other to respect our diversities while protecting our equality. All of us have a hero inside us that is able to recognize the beauty in all of humanity.

Again, I would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for this prestigious award. Thank you, too, to my colleagues and friends who have always supported me in my work as a WHRDs and a human rights commissioner. Last but not least, special thanks to my family, my father and my children who always stand by me and trust in everything I do.

My honor today as Magsaysay awardee has shown the story of an ordinary woman’s struggle for justice, democracy and the rule of law and—this is a big change for women, for families and for the nation.

Today, thirty-eight million people across the globe are living with the silent scourge of HIV/AIDS; more alarmingly, over twenty-five million have died of the disease in less than three decades. Any serious effort to fight the AIDS epidemic requires that treatment be both accessible and affordable; sadly, this remains an unresolved issue for patients in developing countries, where nine out of ten HIV/AIDS cases can be found. Here, countless lives remain at risk because patent protection laws and the lack of generic alternatives make desperately-needed drugs too expensive. Thai scientist KRISANA KRAISINTU has been working determinedly to address this crisis. 

KRISANA sees the huge gap in access to medicines between rich and poor nations as “a crime against humanity, and a holocaust of the poor.” Devoting her life to addressing this problem, she played a pivotal role in Thailand’s success as one of the few countries in the world to have reversed a serious HIV/AIDS epidemic. But not one to rest on her laurels, KRISANA has since brought her expertise and compassion to other parts of the world. 

A highly-trained pharmacist, she earned a doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry from Bath University in England. In 1983, she joined the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO), which manufactures pharmaceutical products to support Thailand’s public health activities. Leading GPO’s newly created Research and Development Institute, she guided the production of numerous generics for a wide range of illnesses, including hypertension and diabetes. 

When AIDS became a national epidemic in Thailand, she conducted research on antiretroviral drugs despite the lack of government support, the skepticism of many colleagues, and lawsuits from drug companies. In 1995, after months of solitary toil with toxic materials in a windowless lab, KRISANA successfully formulated the generic version of AZT (zidovudine), which treats HIV generally and reduces the risk of mother-to-child transmission. Introduced into the market at only one-fourth the cost of the branded product, it is the developing world?s first generic antiretroviral (ARV) drug. 

Working with NGO advocates lobbying for lower consumer prices, she weathered major legal battles to produce the second generic ARV drug ddI (didanosine); still later she and her team invented a “cocktail” drug known as GPO-VIR, which is eighteen times cheaper than the regimens of multiple pills taken by AIDS patients. GPO currently produces seven types of ARVs, with production sufficient to treat 150,000 patients a year in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. 

In 2002 KRISANA took her expertise to sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest-hit by the disease. As she started her work, she was painfully aware that only 1 percent of the four million people in need was receiving ARV therapy. This time, she surmounted another set of formidable obstacles: working in zones of armed conflict, traveling to remote locations, and contending with grossly inadequate facilities. In war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, she set up a pharmaceutical factory that was able to produce generic antiretrovirals after three years. In Tanzania, she helped upgrade an old pharmaceutical plant to produce affordable antimalarial drugs and ARVs. Going further, she brought her expertise to thirteen more African countries, helping them to locally manufacture affordable medicines. 

The intrepid KRISANA easily commiserates with victims of disease. She admits, “I know I’m a scientist, but I’m also very sensitive. When I see suffering I feel very sad, and I want to do something.” So she shares her generic formulas for free and trains chemists and technicians, often using her own money in the course of her work. Making health affordable for the poor, she says, is a matter of social justice. “That is why I want to teach people to make medicines, so they can help themselves.”

In electing KRISANA KRAISINTU to receive the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her placing pharmaceutical rigor at the service of patients through her untiring and fearless dedication to producing much-needed generic drugs in Thailand and elsewhere in the world.

It is truly an honour for me to receive the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award, an award that honours the legacy of a distinguished statesman and signifies transforming contributions to human development in Asia. 

My journey as a pharmacist in pursuit of increasing access to medicines to those underprivileged and often disadvantaged people in developing nations has been a long one. That journey is filled with adventures, formidable challenges and achievements, disappointments and rewards, sadness and joy, both in my homeland Thailand and in many African countries that I’ve visited and worked in. 

I was motivated by a sense of fairness, and a view of AIDS as a social as well as a health problem. I think everybody should get access to treatment. It is a basic human right. The development and manufacture of medicines must be aimed at improving public health and the well-being of the people, thereby contributing to economic growth and prosperity. My life is dedicated to bringing about local pharmaceutical production by formulating and manufacturing affordable generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other maladies, to improve people’s health. 

Between 1983 and 2002 when I worked for Thailand’s Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, GPO manufactured over one hundred new kinds of drugs that had never been produced before in Thailand. In 1995 Thailand became the first developing country to make available the AZT capsule, and in 2001 a fixed-dose generic combination drug of stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine, known as GPO-VIR, against HIV/AIDS. As a result of this cost-reduction and high-quality drug, as well as Thai civil society’s tireless advocacy for its broader availability, the Thai government has established a policy of universal coverage for antiretroviral treatment for 150,000 patients infected by HIV/AIDS to date. 

For the past seven years, I have worked in fifteen African countries, fourteen of which are least developed countries, spread from West to East Africa-teaching the local people to manufacture generic antimalarial and antiretroviral drugs. I believe that teaching people how to fish is better than giving them fish. It is important to break the cycle of health dependency of less developed countries on the wealthier countries and multinational pharmaceutical companies. 

It was passion and compassion that drove me, the belief in what I was doing that sustained me through the toughest of times. My grandmother instilled in me the spirit of perseverance against all odds, and to “never give up” — principles that guide my actions in Africa today where obstacles are the norm. 

It is with great hope that humanity still has a heart filled with compassion that goes beyond the color of one?s own skin and one?s own borders; a hope that people will begin to realize that our brothers and sisters are dying in tragic numbers; and a hope that people truly are more important than profits in this business that is life. 

The challenges ahead are immense. But my determination-to increase access by the poorest of the poor, wherever they are, to affordable and high-quality medicines-continues to propel me to carry on with my journey. Thank you very much.

Modern orthopedic science, combined with space-age technology, has transformed the field of prosthetics. But in much of Asia-and even more so in provincial areas such as northern Thailand-modern prosthetic limbs are well beyond the reach of ordinary people who need them. They are too expensive. They are too time-consuming to acquire and maintain. Or they are poorly designed for life in the hills and on the farm. This is why poor people who lose legs from accidents or land mines or diabetes (or from snake bites, for that matter) often resort to makeshift alternatives. They fashion substitute limbs from bamboo shafts and spare bicycle parts and from wood and leather and plastic pipes, or they walk on homemade crutches. Observing this some forty years ago, THERDCHAI JIVACATE JIVACATE, a young orthopedist practicing in Chiang Mai, decided he could help them. 

Therdchai, a graduate of Chulalongkorn Hospital Medical School who also studied rehabilitation medicine at Northwestern University, began to experiment with cheap and sturdy alternatives to the prosthetic limbs available at his hospital, all of them made from costly imported materials. An early breakthrough involved recycling plastic yogurt bottles to fabricate artificial legs. Using his own money and time taken from his private practice, Therdchai tinkered constantly to simplify the fabrication process and to adapt his devices to local circumstances, creating a “farmer’s foot” for working in wet, slippery fields, and another foot for wearing flip-flops. To poor patients, he provided these devices free. 

In time, Thailand’s late Princess Mother Sri Nagarindra came to know of THERDCHAI’s generous project. In 1992, she lent her patronage to create the Prostheses Foundation in Chiang Mai under his direction. With support from the royal family, private donors, and the Thai national lottery fund, THERDCHAI was able to expand his work. 

Amputees from Thailand’s remote borderlands were among the least likely to have access to proper prosthetic limbs. To change this, THERDCHAI initiated field clinics in which teams of doctors, technicians, staff members, and volunteers bring prosthetic workshops directly to the people. Once on the site, he and his team assess the awaiting amputees; make casts of their stumps; mold plastic limbs for each one and then test them for proper alignment, comfort, and “gait.” On the sixth day, a custom-made limb is presented to each amputee-anywhere from 150 to 300 persons. To date, Therdchai has organized one hundred of these mobile workshops, including several in neighboring Malaysia, Laos, and Myanmar. 

In certain high-need areas bordering Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, Therdchai also set up permanent satellite workshops capable of making artificial limbs on the spot. The foundation equips these workshops and also trains the technicians, who are often amputees themselves. In ancillary activities, the foundation has organized artificial-leg workshops in Aceh, Indonesia, and trained prosthesis technicians from several neighboring countries. Meanwhile, THERDCHAI himself established Thailand’s first and only school of occupational therapy at Chiang Mai University. 

Through it all, THERDCHAI has remained an inventor, assiduously refining his designs and fabrication techniques in cooperation with engineers at the King Mongkut Institute of Technology and other collaborators. His devices cost about 60-80 percent less than the imported alternatives and are durable. Through the Prostheses Foundation, more than fifteen thousand people have received them free of charge. 

Although officially retired, THERDCHAI at sixty-eight shows few signs of slowing down. He knows that well-made prosthetic limbs not only restore amputees to productive lives; they also restore their self esteem. His work brings great satisfaction. “Seeing my patients’ smiles . . . when they are able to walk on both legs,” he says, “I just feel happy.” 

In electing THERDCHAI JIVACATE to receive the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes his dedicated efforts in Thailand to provide inexpensive, practical, and comfortable artificial limbs to even the poorest amputees.

The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Distinguished guests, Fellow Awardees and dear friends. 

First of all, I would like to thank the Foundation for selecting me for such an honourable award. I have often heard about this famous award and its distinguished awardees, ever since I was young. 

I could hardly believe my ears when I was informed by Magsaysay Foundation President, Ms. Carn Abella, that I had been selected to receive one of this year’s awards. At that auspicious time, I was busy fitting an artificial leg for a baby elephant in Lampang province. It was truly great and pleasurable news for me. 

As an orthopedic surgeon for over the past forty years, I needed to cut off the legs of many patients. But when I was a young orthopedic surgeon, it was very difficult for the amputees to obtain artificial legs in Thailand, because access to the technology of making and fitting artificial legs was confined only to Bangkok. In addition, they were very expensive. Amputees had to use bamboo or wood or whatever materials they could find to make into artificial legs. This inspired me to further my studies in prosthetics and orthotics during my residency training in the United States. 

Because prostheses and orthoses, in those days, were only made from imported parts, they were very expensive and could not be made for the poor. I began trying every means to make the parts of an artificial leg from local materials. This reduced the cost of an artificial leg by half and more amputees could receive an artificial leg. 

In 1992 my colleague Mr. Boonyu and I were able to make artificial legs from used, hence wasted, yogurt bottles which made the cost of the materials for a leg ten times cheaper than those made from imported parts in a government hospital. When this became known to His Majesty the King’s Mother, she established the Prostheses Foundation to support me in making artificial legs for poor and underprivileged amputees, to be distributed free of charge. 

Because underprivileged amputees almost always live in remote areas, we set up a mobile unit which could travel to reach them. From 1992 up to the present, I have led 101 mobile unit trips to the rural and remote areas, and about 21,710 artificial legs have been provided to 15,981 amputees. 

I owe a great deal to His Majesty the King’s Mother and to her daughter, Her Royal Highness Princess Galayani Watana, who gave me a chance to do the work as Secretary General of the Prostheses Foundation. 

Once again I would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this prestigious recognition of our work. This Award will certainly give me greater moral support to continue my work for the sake of the amputees, not only those in Thailand, but in the region. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues and my family who have enabled me to continue to fulfill my mission. 

Korb kun krub.

For much of the twentieth century, Thailand was led by military men as governments shifted coup after coup. Even so, democracy slowly took hold. A new constitution in 1997 enshrined civilian governance and popular representation through elections. The kingdom’s democratic transition now seems complete. Yet today, democracy and “money politics” have created a new power matrix in Thailand. “We have never had a government with such authority and power,” says Senator JON UNGPHAKORN, noting that the voices of many Thai citizens remain unheard. As a member of Thailand’s upper house, he is raising those voices. 

Born in London in 1947, UNGPHAKORN trained as an engineer in England but made his life in Thailand, where his father, Puey Ungphakorn, was an enlightened architect of the modern Thai state and an early Ramon Magsaysay Awardee. UNGPHAKORN began his own career as a lecturer at Mahidol University but, in the politically turbulent 1970s, turned his attention to social issues. In 1980 he founded the Thai Volunteer Service to expose privileged university graduates to the country’s rural poor and to the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that were working among them. UNGPHAKORN helped the new NGOs to manage and fund their projects and, as he did so, played a key role in knitting Thailand’s nascent civil society together. 

Responding early to the presence of HIV/AIDS in Thailand, in 1991 UNGPHAKORN founded the AIDS-Access Foundation. He pioneered in providing confidential counseling for people with HIV/AIDS and their families, in fighting the public stigma of AIDS, and in asserting the rights of everyone to effective and affordable treatment. As chair of the NGO Coalition on AIDS, he fostered collaboration and helped build an effective network for advocacy. 

When Thailand’s new constitution opened the Senate to election in 2000, Ungphakorn mobilized supporters from the NGO and HIV/AIDS communities and won a seat. He says frankly that “No one listens to NGOs, but if you are elected senator . . . everyone is interested.” 

The Thai Senate does not initiate legislation but plays an important role in monitoring government and shaping the country’s laws. As a member of the Health Committee and the Social Development and Human Security Committee, UNGPHAKORN used his position to advance the concerns of Thailand’s marginalized citizens, making shrewd use of the press to publicize critical committee findings that might otherwise have been shelved or buried in the slow-moving legislative process. As he did so, UNGPHAKORN prioritized Thailand’s HIV/AIDS community — by working to include HIV/AIDS patients in the country’s new “30-baht-per-visit” national health scheme; by supporting the lawsuit against Bristol-Myers Squibb that opened the door for Thailand to produce a critical anti-HIV drug at half the cost; and by prevailing upon the government to ban a food supplement being callously advertised as an AIDS miracle drug. 

But UNGPHAKORN has also used his senatorial authority to expose the brutal hand of the government toward Muslim communities in southern Thailand, and to uphold the rights of rural folk whose livelihoods are threatened by property speculators and scandal-ridden dams, power plants, and mines. He has inveighed against the death penalty, against intellectual-property-rights agreements that disadvantage poor Thais, and against a national press that has failed, he says, to report “violence perpetrated by the state apparatus [and] the violation of human rights.”

UNGPKHAKORN is not alone in pressing these concerns. But he and his like-minded senators are in a minority. Most senators bow to the government, he says. But UNGPHAKORN knows that his constituency and his heart lie elsewhere. “I was elected by NGOs and the HIV/AIDS community,” he says. “They set the agenda. I give them support.?”

In electing JON UNGPHAKORN to receive the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his impassioned insistence as a senator that Thailand respect the rights and attend humanely to the needs of its least advantaged citizens.

The honorable Chief Justice Davide, Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow awardees, ladies and gentlemen:

Forty years ago today, in his response to receiving the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, my father, Dr. Puey Ungphakorn, referred to my youngest brother Giles, then aged 12 and a stamp collector. Giles had quoted to my father a part of Ramon Magsaysay’s Credo which he had learned from a commemorative postage stamp the part which translates into English as “I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.”

Today, I also have a story to tell about Giles, now a university lecturer and political activist. I learned very recently that when Giles was approached for information about me during the nomination process, he asked whether it would be possible not to nominate me, but to nominate Somchai Nilapaijit instead. I could not agree with him more. 

Somchai was President of the Thai Muslim Lawyers Association and a civil rights lawyer who made great sacrifices to provide the best legal services for Muslim defendants, often people whom Ramon Magsaysay would have described as having less in life. He paid the ultimate sacrifice on March 12th 2004 when he was abducted from his car in Bangkok, never to be seen or heard of again. This occurred soon after he started a signature campaign calling for martial law to be lifted from three southern provinces, and just after he petitioned a Senate committee to investigate allegations that five people whom he was defending had been tortured by police in order to obtain false confessions. Five policemen were later arrested on charges relating to his abduction and are presently on trial, but it is unlikely that those who gave the orders for his demise will be uncovered in the near future. 

Unfortunately, the regulations of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation do not allow for posthumous nominations, and so here I am now, receiving this great honor which I dedicate first and foremost to lawyer Somchai and his family. 

The present Constitution of my country, Thailand, guarantees the civil rights and democratic freedoms of individuals and communities on a par with the most democratic countries of the world. Yet since its promulgation eight years ago, Thailand has seen some of the worst human rights and civil rights abuses in recent history. The disappearance of lawyer Somchai is just one example. 

Our Constitution guarantees the rights of communities to participate in the management and conservation of their own natural resources and environment, and to receive a fair hearing regarding any development projects which might adversely affect them. Yet not only have these community rights been widely ignored and natural resources such as land, forest, and water been grabbed away from communities, but at least 15 community leaders from all regions of the country have been assassinated since 2001 for trying to protect their communities against environmental destruction by outsiders with vested interests. They received little protection or recognition from the state for serving the interests of their communities and of society as a whole, and in most cases the perpetrators of their deaths have remained unpunished. It is therefore important that I should dedicate my award to all of them for their courage and sacrifice. 

Since January 2004, violence in the southernmost provinces of Thailand has escalated out of control. Brutal killings of innocent people by terrorists believed to be members of separatist groups have become an everyday occurrence. At the same time, numerous reports of unlawful practices by police and military units against Muslims in these provinces including allegations of abductions, torture, and killings, have caused widespread resentment and distrust of security forces among the local population. The unclear circumstances surrounding the deaths of 19 members of the Sabayoi youth football team in April 2004 and the deaths, while in military custody, of 78 demonstrators arrested at Tak Bai six months later are extremely disturbing events to all who respect the values that form the foundations of our Constitution. 

I would therefore like to additionally dedicate my award to all those who are working for peace and justice in the southern provinces, including members of the National Reconciliation Commission headed by Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, Anand Panyarachun. 

I also dedicate my award to all civil society activists, whether from NGOs or peoples’ organizations, who are working under difficult circumstances for social justice, respect for human rights, empowerment of the powerless, and equitable management of natural resources; including all my friends and colleagues in the Thai Volunteer Service network, the Thai NGO Coalition on AIDS and the national and regional networks of people living with HIV/AIDS. 

Furthermore, I would like to dedicate this award to all those struggling for media and press freedom in Thailand in accordance with Articles 39 and 41 of our Constitution. This includes those journalists and media people who have managed to maintain the ethical standards of their profession by reporting news in a straightforward manner and not giving in to various forms of intimidation. It also includes those-such as the ITV news staff, several radio news commentators, and some newspaper journalists-who have been victimized for their integrity, as well as Supinya Klangnarong of the Campaign for Media Reform who is being sued for damages of well over 1,000 times her annual income together with the Thai Post newspaper. 

Last, but certainly not least, I would like to dedicate my award to all fellow members of the Thai Senate who have performed their duties in strict accordance with their oath of office; that is to say, with honesty, for the benefit of the people, and by adhering to the principles of our Constitution. 

Finally, it only remains for me to express my gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for giving me the opportunity to accept this award on behalf of so many people striving to make Thailand a better place to live for all.

In the late twentieth century, “economic development” was the world’s watchword. Finding a formula to move millions of rural workers and farmers from poverty to prosperity preoccupied newly independent nations everywhere and also the countries that sought to aid and influence them. But no magic formula was found. It seems that some aspects of rural poverty are disturbingly resistant to the insights of development experts with PhD’s. Yet, in a remote corner of southern Thailand, a farmer with a fourth-grade education has made a breakthrough. This is PRAYONG RONNARONG. 

As a boy, PRAYONG RONNARONG observed his grandfather, a revered local healer. From him, and from his parents too, PRAYONG learned the value of serving others and the respect it confers. Theirs was a world of farmers, and PRAYONG spent only a few years in school before becoming a farmer himself. Like others in Mairiang Subdistrict, he invested in rubber, a promising cash crop in the early 1960s. And, like the others, he suffered badly when rubber prices plummeted a few years later. Responding to this blow, PRAYONG became a leader. 

Instead of abandoning rubber, PRAYONG led a group of farmers to study the crisis and to react rationally. Raising capital from fellow villagers at fifty baht per share, they built a rubber-processing plant in Mairiang to produce high-quality latex for the better prices of the Bangkok market. PRAYONG was soon managing a factory that produced three tons of latex a day. He became adept at drawing lessons from other rubber producers and applying them in Mairiang. Neighboring communities began to notice Mairiang’s success and, in the early 1990s, PRAYONG helped ten of them to establish similar community-owned latex factories. By 1996, there were over one hundred in his home province. Using the community-learning process they had adopted earlier, these farmers painstakingly developed their own Thai Para Rubber Strategic Plan. And despite government rejection of the plan, they continued to base their community activities on it. 

Meanwhile, PRAYONG created a council of leaders to plan Mairiang’s future collectively. At the Mairiang Community Learning and Development Center, he and the other leaders orchestrated cooperation between the subdistrict’s rice, fruit, and rubber growers and identified other products for which Mairiang’s farmers might gain a competitive advantage: rice-flour noodles, shampoo, drinking water, and others. They scoured the country to learn the best practices of other farmers and to gather the advice of experts. In the process, they created a “master plan” for Mairiang that promoted not only community enterprises but also education, health, and welfare measures funded from the profits of these enterprises-including scholarships for the youth and a social security fund. Today some nine hundred families are its direct beneficiaries. 

The number of its indirect beneficiaries is much higher. In recent years, key elements of PRAYONG’s community-crafted master-plan approach have been adopted as part of Thailand’s economic and social development programs. They are now being applied across the country, and PRAYONG is frequently on call to explain how it is done. 

The key, he says, is to identify “a small group of like-minded people who are willing to do something” and then to support them in every way possible. Indeed, this has been PRAYONG’s role and today, at sixty-three, he continues to embrace it. Despite a certain celebrity and even trips around the world, he remains true to his roots in Mairiang, avoiding fancy hotels and other luxuries such as an automobile. “It’s not money that makes me happy but to do something I really want to do,” he says. “Developing the people comes naturally.” 

In electing PRAYONG RONNARONG to receive the 2004 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his leading fellow farmers in demonstrating that the model of self-reliant local enterprises, supported by active community learning, is the path to rural prosperity in Thailand.

Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Distinguished Guests, Fellow Awardees and Dear Friends. 

It is a great honor for me, an ordinary farmer from a small community in Southern Thailand, to be named Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Community Leadership. I would like to thank you on behalf of my community members, my fellow farmers, for your recognition of what we have been doing and struggling for during the past decades to improve the quality of life of the poor and disadvantaged people in the rural areas. 

I was fortunate to be born in a Southern community, where people love learning. I inherited this spirit from my family and community. Although I finished only the 4th grade, I have been learning my whole life in what I call a “Life University.” I have been learning by doing, by interacting with other people from all walks of life. 

My environment was and still is, as most of Southern Thailand, dominantly rubber plantation. In 1969 rubber prices dropped drastically. It was the year we started to seriously search for solutions from rubber problems, which were linked to all other problems. From our small community in Mairiang, the network of people expanded to other provinces of the South, and from that day to today, 35 years of lessons learned have crystallized into a development paradigm, including a way of thinking, of acting, of valuing based on a particular view of reality, which I would like to put into four simple words: 

1. Learning. One of the most important principles I have been using during the past decade is “know yourself, know your community, know the world which has an impact on community life”. Know yourself means to be aware of what one is doing and where one is going, and why. For the community, there is a need for a learning process for all community members, so that all may be aware of themselves, of the changes happening in the society and in the world. 

2. Self-reliance. During the first period (about 30 years ago) our community struggled by itself, practically without any assistance from outside, to solve rubber problems. We got together and shared our concerns, and we realized that by so doing it was not sufficient to find solutions. We decided to go out to learn from other people and other places, and from the larger world. Three years later, we succeeded in drawing lessons learned and decided to set up a community rubber processing factory, managed, and owned by the community. That enterprise gave us confidence. We can now face any problem on our own. 

3. Freedom. Past experiences taught us that we have to rely on ourselves, make our own decisions, and use our own resources, without depending totally on others’ initiatives and resources. We learn that success is the result of our free decision, being ourselves in learning, in choosing our way of life and development. 

4. Social relationship. We realize that we need to establish relationships and collaboration with all parties. Mairiang has established relationships with other communities in the form of a network. At the local level, we have a network of rubber, fruit and rice growers. We also collaborate with the Village Foundation to develop models of community rubber factories, community health scheme, and community enterprise, and a strategic plan. All these have been well received by the government and adopted into the national policy. We have established the Mairiang Community Learning and Development Centre. Gos, NGOs, academics and people from the private sector from outside the community come to complement what we have initiated and invested with our resources. We make the main “contribution,” they provide the “counterpart.”

I am aware that this Ramon Magsaysay Award is not directed to me personally, but as a member of a community, a community leader in Thailand. I am only one small part of the network of communities which expand day by day. This precious award is the price of our common efforts and accomplishments. I will deliver this means of hope and encouragement back to all the members of Mairiang and the communities in my country, Thailand.

National economies grow unevenly. As Southeast Asia’s powerful centers surged ahead in recent decades—Bangkok prominently among them—they captured the lion’s share of capital and jobs and new opportunities. To rural areas the new wealth trickled down all too slowly, all the more so after the region’s long sustaining boom ended abruptly in 1997. Thai business leader SOPHON SUPHAPONG thinks that economic growth that neglects the countryside is unhealthy. As president of Bangchak Petroleum, he has been stimulating Thailand’s economy where he believes it matters most: at the roots.

Born in 1946, SOPHON spent part of his boyhood in Thailand’s rural southern provinces where his father served as governor. Despite its elevated status, the family was extremely frugal. This was necessary because SOPHON’s father refused to augment his meager government salary by accepting bribes and other illicit sources of income. “Honesty,” he taught his son, “is the highest honor of a man’s life.” Later, when for many years SOPHON’s father lay helpless in the hospital with a debilitating nerve disease, SOPHON asked himself, “After a man dies, what is left of his name?” This thought, he says, “established my way of life.”

SOPHON studied electrical engineering at Chulalongkorn University and then entered the petroleum industry. In 1980, he was appointed deputy governor of the Petroleum Authority of Thailand and assigned to manage a debt-laden oil refinery belonging to the government. At the time, it was losing three million baht a day. SOPHON reorganized the company and restored it to profitability. Renamed Bangchak Petroleum, it was soon one of Thailand’s leading oil providers. SOPHON was named president in 1985.

Eager to expand Bangchak’s distribution network and, at the same time, to enliven the rural economy, SOPHON began recruiting agricultural cooperatives to be owner-operators of his company’s service stations. To help them, he guaranteed loans for purchasing Bangchak franchises and sent his managers to teach neophyte dealers how to run the new businesses. Today, cooperative societies, women’s groups, and other community organizations throughout Thailand own and operate six hundred of Bangchak’s twelve hundred service stations. Many have also branched out into other Bangchak enterprises such as petroleum delivery, clothing manufacture, and service-station convenience stores called Lemon Green. Moreover, farm-fresh produce is now available at many Bangchak outlets. Over a million Thai households are now involved in these money-making enterprises. Bangchak Petroleum has also profited from SOPHON’s unconventional strategy. As one admirer puts it, “Bangchak’s national distribution network is the envy of its rivals.”

Under SOPHON’s direction, Bangchak also promotes conservation and environmental awareness in Thailand and is a leader in sponsoring public interest television programs. When the country’s new reform constitution was being formulated in 1997, SOPHON fostered public debate by using Bangchak’s network of service stations to distribute the draft constitution nation wide. As a private citizen, he is preoccupied with issues of poverty, child abuse, and his country’s democracy.

SOPHON shuns the social whirl of Bangkok in favor of his many causes and the quiet haven provided by his wife and two daughters. In the current economic crisis, he worries about ordinary Thais. As government-owned Bangchak faces privatization, SOPHON fervently asserts that the company’s new owners should be Thais–even better, rural Thais. “Economic power that lies in the hands of only five percent of society . . . is not healthy,” he says. A healthier economy for Thailand’s future will be based on “many small businesses” throughout the country—businesses much like Bangchak’s rural gas stations and mini-marts.

In electing SOPHON SUPHAPONG to receive the 1998 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service the board of trustees recognizes his stimulating Thailand’s rural economy by helping hundreds of rural cooperatives and community organizations own and operate their own businesses as affiliates of a major Thai oil company.

It is a great honor for me to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award. To receive the Award is also a source of pride to those who share my work in Public Service.

Also I would like to take this opportunity to join all the people of the Philippines to commemorate the birth anniversary of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, your great leader. His spirit will continue to be an inspiration to all of us.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award has been recognized by the world community. The Foundation’s commitment to public service and underprivileged peoples has proven to be a good example for the contemporary and the next generations.

It is my belief that to help people in need, particularly those underprivileged people and children in poor neighborhoods and rural areas, is everyone’s responsibility as human beings. To support the rural people by operating businesses together with them through their Community Organizations makes good sense for both humanitarian and business considerations. It is hoped that such cooperation will be beneficial to both business and rural communities. While business flourishes, rural communities also develop and prosper.

Business operations should not simply be “business for business’ sake”. The business community should also strive to promote the togetherness of family members—children and parents, husbands and wives, young and elderly people—and to provide opportunities for underprivileged people in rural areas to increase their income in a better environment. It should also work to advance social justice. Indeed, if all of us truly devoted ourselves to helping each other, it is certain that the underprivileged and weaker members of society, especially children, will be provided for. This is what we are striving for in creating a strong civil society.

I would like to express my gratitude and sincere thanks to those who have been supportive of my work and all the people of the Philippines, especially members of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for their warm hospitality.

The bloodless revolution that ended Thailand’s absolute kingship in 1932 also heralded democracy. But in the years thereafter, military coups d’etat, not elections, became the common landmarks of political change in Thailand. Generals dominated government, rarely elected civilians. By 1990, however, after a decade of hopeful change, many Thais believed that democracy was at last taking root in their country. But the army struck again in February 1991. Promising new elections in due course, the successful coup plotters chose an esteemed civilian to serve as interim prime minister: ANAND PANYARACHUN.

Born in 1932, ANAND ascended through schools in Bangkok and London and earned his B.A. (Honours) at Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and subsequently served as its Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as ambassador to Canada and the United States. As Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs under a civilian government, he paved the way for reconciliation with China and Vietnam and opposed the continued presence of American military bases in Thailand. As a result, when yet another coup returned the army to power in October 1976, he was branded a communist-sympathizer. Exonerated by an investigation panel, he was assigned to a post abroad. In 1979, he resigned and entered business. By 1990, ANAND was Executive Chairman of the Saha-Union conglomerate and a widely respected business leader.

ANAND disapproved of military coups and accepted the premiership only from a sense of duty. Acting with surprising independence and broad public acclaim, he launched a volley of reforms. He expanded press freedom, committed the government to combat the spread of AIDS, enacted Thailand’s first comprehensive environmental law, promoted philanthropy and private support for education, insisted upon transparency in the state’s joint ventures with private companies, and generated millions of extra public revenue by renegotiating questionable deals between the previous government and its favored companies. Hundreds of vexing regulations were updated or eliminated. ANAND’s aggressive pursuit of privatization, tax reform, and trade liberalization stoked the country’s economy and helped win the confidence of investors at home and abroad. All this in one year’s time!

Elections in March 1992 brought a new crisis. When victorious military-linked political parties named the chief architect of the 1991 coup as prime minister, outraged citizens protested. In May, government soldiers fired upon pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok; nearly a hundred died. Thailand’s king now intervened to pave the way for a democratic restoration. ANAND was called, once again, to assume the interim premiership and organize credible elections. Three months later, he passed the reins of leadership to a freely elected government.

ANAND then returned to Saha-Union. In the years since, he has remained an influential public figure, investing his energy and prestige to harness the resources and goodwill of business on behalf of the environment and to advance other social and political reforms.

Thailand’s democracy is still fragile and flawed by corruption. Yet ANAND remains a believer. “It is no longer in question whether we should opt for economic development or democracy,” he asserts. “The two must proceed together.” As a leading member of the assembly drafting his country’s new constitution, he has labored to strengthen democracy in Thailand by securing civil liberties, making government more accountable to citizens, and eliminating vote buying and other scourges of money politics.

A straight-speaking and patient man, sixty-five-year-old ANAND knows that not all of Thailand’s problems will be solved in his lifetime. “Diplomats and businessmen are taught to be realists,” he says. “As an ex-diplomat working in the business community, I am very much a realist. ”

In electing ANAND PANYARACHUN to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his sustaining the momentum for reform and democracy in Thailand in a time of crisis and military rule.

I am honored to have been conferred the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

This Award carries the name and spirit of a great Asian leader, one known for his unstinting efforts to pursue reform in every segment of Philippine life. President Magsaysay’s commitment to reform for the benefit of Philippine society and his well-deserved reputation for incorruptibility provide us with a shining example of Asian values.

Throughout my own life and career, I have tried to pursue the same goals. It has been my view, tested in the crucible of my public and private careers, that the advancement of Asian societies can be achieved only in the presence of good governance, including:

First, an honest government, one that serves the interests of the people; Second, an efficient government, one that provides good value for money; Third, a just government, one that endeavors with sincerity and vigor to minimize economic and social inequalities.

Above all, good governance requires compliance with the precepts of democratic rule.

The lessons of the twentieth century are clear. First, no nation can any longer afford to base its prosperity, its security, and its future on military might. Second, no nation can any longer feel secure if its citizens are deprived of the opportunities for meaningful participation in political, economic, and social life. Third and most important, real security can only derive from a nation’s inner strength, the well-being of the people.

In accepting this Award, I do so on behalf of the many Thais who have pursued the same goals that I have striven for, namely, the building of a democratic society, emphasizing people’s participation, economic prosperity, and social justice.

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a stealthy killer. Although intravenous drug users are especially vulnerable, it reaches most of its victims through acts of sex. Once in the body it may sleep secretly for years before striking. It finds willing accomplices in public denial and, in countries such as Thailand, a pervasive sex industry. There, the disease has spread to hundreds of thousands of Thais in less than ten years—as HIV positive prostitutes infect their male clients and they, in turn, infect their girl friends and wives and, through the infected mothers, their newborn infants. For years, as this crisis slowly mounted, few in Thailand took heed. MECHAI VIRAVAIDYA was an exception.

An economist by training, MECHAI began his career with Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board. In 1974, he founded the Population and Community Development Association, or PDA, which pioneered in community-based family-planning services and training, eventually reaching 16,000 Thai villages. In MECHAI’s successful program, respected local persons imparted the benefits of fertility management to neighbors and made contraceptive methods easily available. Meanwhile, MECHAI’s penchant for humorous and uninhibited publicity demystified birth control and made his own name popularly synonymous with the condom. Working with government, PDA’s initiative helped reduce Thailand’s annual birthrate by half between 1968 and today.

MECHAI also led PDA into a wide range of other projects to improve rural life and foster self-reliant development—primary health care, water resource management, reforestation, drug rehabilitation, and credit cooperatives. Working with numerous international funders, PDA became Thailand’s largest NGO.

The first case of AIDS in Thailand was reported only in 1984 and, for a time, the number of known carriers was small. But MECHAI was aware of the disease’s explosive potential. In the face of government complacency and opposition from the country’s lucrative tourist industry, in 1987 he launched the first mass campaign to educate Thais about AIDS. He warned that without intervention, over a million could be infected within a decade. PDA flooded the country with audio and video cassettes, books, and pamphlets bluntly explaining the risks and how to avoid them. MECHAI’s provocative publicity stunts captured headlines. He found an ally in Thailand’s military, which broadcast anti-AIDS messages on its radio and TV networks.

A new government in 1991 took MECHAI in. As a senior minister, he mobilized every government agency to fight AIDS and helped formulate Thailand’s National AIDS Plan—the most comprehensive government response to the AIDS epidemic anywhere in Asia today. In relaying his message, MECHAI is consistently nonjudgmental. Part of PDA’s AIDS information campaign aims to create a supportive and nondiscriminatory environment for HIV victims in the workplace and community. Although he has advocated regulating Thailand’s sex industry, he cautions that, in this realm, “coercion has never worked.”

A private citizen once again, the ever-imaginative MECHAI is now piloting PDA’s latest venture. It enjoins Thailand’s biggest companies to “adopt” rural villages and create income-generating projects there. MECHAI hopes to wean rural families from sex trade remittances and to create opportunities for their daughters to enjoy a decent livelihood at home.

There are no borders where AIDS is concerned, warns MECHAI. His advice to neighboring countries is “react early, react strong.” Moreover, private citizens must take the lead. “Don’t think that the government will think for itself,” he says. “We have to push from the outside.”

In electing MECHAI VIRAVAIDYA to receive the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his mounting creative public campaigns in Thailand to promote family planning, rural development, and a rigorous, honest, and compassionate response to the plague of AIDS.

It is a very great honor for me to accept this award and I humbly thank you for the opportunity. I would like to stress, first and foremost, that the award really goes to the countless individuals who have worked consistently to provide family planning, health care, and community development services to rural areas. Their important contributions have brought about much of the positive change that we see around us, and I laud their efforts.

Today the struggle for equality and a better life continues, beset by a pandemic that has further divided our societies. That pandemic is AIDS and it threatens to condemn several countries in our region to another generation of grinding poverty. Currently, half of the population infected with HIV are aged between fifteen and twenty-four. The problem is compounded by the fact that many people in Asia, as well as some governments, are still denying the gravity of the situation and the potential impact of the HIV virus. As governments delay in responding constructively and fairly to the AIDS crisis, our societies as a whole also fail to address the problem with compassion at a time when it is most needed.

This inability to respond to the pandemic in an effective, decent manner indicates much deeper social issues at play, those of inequality, injustice, and indifference. AIDS has the potential to further divide us and we all bear responsibility for ensuring that does not happen. We must not, as a society, discriminate. Rather, we must commit ourselves to dealing with the HIV virus with the genuine understanding and humanity demanded by the situation.

I would like to thank once again the many people who have and are continuing to work in AIDS prevention and treatment. The award recognizes their efforts. Let it also serve as a gesture of encouragement to those who are directly affected by AIDS. And to the rest of us, let it be the light of inspiration to find the means and strength to build a fair and humane society.

In Asia, we realize, the trappings of democracy must often come before the substance of democracy. This has certainly been the experience of Southeast Asia, where elected officials have long occupied a conspicuous place on the national stage, but where real power often lies with others who stand well beyond the reach of voters.

The process of achieving democracy can be painfully slow in such circumstances, and is easily frustrated. And since few political actors are wholly immune to intrigues, or to greed and power-seeking, sometimes it is the behavior of elected officials themselves that discredits the democratic alternative. Yet, if elected leaders are no better than military strongmen or domineering party bosses, why should people take the risk of insisting on democracy?

As the elected governor of Bangkok and a champion of democratic reforms in Thailand, CHAMLONG SRIMUANG has renewed hope among Thais that the risk is worth taking.

Son of an immigrant Chinese fish vendor, CHAMLONG rose in life by dint of discipline and ambition. He worked his way through high school and achieved admission to the Royal Thai Military Academy, graduating in 1960. As a military officer he served in Laos and Vietnam, and at the Armed Forces Supreme Command in Thailand. He studied management abroad. Chosen in 1980 to become executive secretary to Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanond, he stepped down a year later to oppose an impending law that he disapproved of on moral grounds; but he remained with the army and was promoted to major general. In 1985, when constitutional reforms made the governorship of Bangkok an elected post, he resigned and launched his first political campaign.

Drawing on the teachings of an austere sect of Buddhism which he practices, CHAMLONG placed moral issues at the center of his election campaign. No vote buying. No smearing of rivals. No compromising political contributions. He mobilized his followers into a new party which he later named Palang Dharma, or Moral Force. And, against the odds, he won.

As governor, CHAMLONG brought order and cleanliness to Bangkok’s streets, canals, and public markets. He tackled the city’s crippling floods and traffic. He improved life for the city’s poorest. Saying, “a selfish person throws garbage everywhere,” he exhorted Bangkok’s six million citizens to make sacrifices for the common good. He taught them that small human actions, if practiced widely by citizens, can have a huge public impact. Refusing his salary and turning his back on other perquisites of office, CHAMLONG set the example himself. He lived simply, dressed simply, and ate only one vegetarian meal a day. To make a point, he took up a broom and swept the streets.

CHAMLONG swept his government clean too. Less corruption meant more money for city services. So did vigorous tax collection. “I suggest sincerity and hard work,” he said, and practiced what he preached. This astonished his constituents who re-elected him in a landslide victory in 1990.

In March 1992 CHAMLONG’s Palang Dharma party won 32 of Bangkok’s 35 seats in Thailand’s parliament, making him a national force. When, a few months later, the country’s chief military commander assumed the office of prime minister, 57-year-old CHAMLONG pitted his moral authority against the brute strength of the state. With a stunning act of non-violent protest that prompted his arrest, he galvanized the public to reject the unelected leader. Thailand’s King intervened personally to effect his release and to foster a peaceful resolution to the crisis favoring greater democracy for Thailand.

In electing CHAMLONG SRIMUANG to receive the 1992 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his exemplary governorship of Bangkok and his fervent insistence that elections are the sole legitimate path to political power in Thailand.

It is indeed a great honor for me to be selected and invited to receive the Magsaysay Award today.

President Magsaysay was a very a courageous person who worked with great honesty and devotion for the Philippines all his life. This foundation has established this award in the name of this great president of the Philippines not only to honor him but to remind everyone of his magnificent performance as a public servant. This award inspires great determination and willpower among professionals to follow in his footsteps, and work with honesty and devotion toward the growth and development of the nations in this region. So I am deeply pleased to have succeeded in his ideal of working for one’s country with great dedication.

I never expected to become a reputable politician or to pursue popularity and fame. I work with the sense of responsibility of an ordinary man being a member of the community who serves the public in order to create a better society.

My success in performing my duties and responsibilities as the governor of Bangkok derives from the remarkable cooperation of the officials of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and the citizens of Bangkok Metropolis. They deserve all the credit for this award. No development project can succeed without the cooperation of the public. The public must do its part from the beginning to the end of each project. I am just a part of the development process.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation board of trustees and everyone who had a hand in giving me this great honor. Once again, I confirm my determination to serve the public with great honesty and devotion in order to create a better society for the future.