Lasting for two decades from 1955 to 1975, the war in Vietnam left a deep and horrific trauma, with more than three million deaths—two out of every three of them civilians—officially reported by the Vietnamese government. But these deaths were hardly the end of Vietnam’s ordeal. Half a century later, even newborn babies continue to suffer from its lingering effects, paying a heavy price for a conflict they merely inherited.

That lethal legacy literally remains in Vietnam’s war-ravaged soil and its environment—people who went through the war, not only the Vietnamese but the Americans as well who fought in that war. The culprit is tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), one of the most toxic and poisonous chemicals known, and a component of “Agent Orange,” extensively used during the war by the Americans to clear the forest cover and expose their enemy, as well as to destroy the crops that sustained them. Between 1962 and 1971, about twenty million gallons of dioxin-imbued herbicides were sprayed from the air, in Vietnam, by American planes.

Not only did Agent Orange kill every plant that it touched within two days; its dioxin leached into surrounding waters, and into the fish and ducks that were staples of the Vietnamese diet. Soon, after the war, physicians reported a troubling increase in the incidence of miscarriages, skin diseases, cancers, birth defects, and congenital malformations among the people.

What took just seconds to deploy has damaged four generations of victims. The exact numbers remain elusive, but it is estimated that 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to dioxin, out of whom about three million became victims, including thousands of children in the second, third, and even fourth generations.

The suffering continues, and so does the war on the side of Vietnamese and other researchers who have taken up the fight against the devastating effects of Agent Orange. In Vietnam, that battle has been led by NGUYEN THI NGOC PHUONG (born 1944), the former director of Tu Du Hospital, the country’s largest obstetric hospital.

PHUONG came of age and became a doctor over the course of the war. At its peak, in 1968, she recalls that “When I was an intern, I delivered for the first time in my life, a severely deformed baby—it had no brain and limbs. It was horrible for me, I was nauseous, vomiting and shaking. And how was the scared young mother? She was in shock when she saw her baby. Since then, every day or two, I have witnessed such birth defects and mother’s sufferings. But, for many years, I didn’t know what caused these tragic events.”

That terrible mystery led her to undertake her life’s great mission: to find out the truth about Agent Orange, to seek justice for its victims, and to assist the afflicted in all ways possible. Prompted by a paper on the use of herbicides in Vietnam, PHUONG and her associates established that people in areas sprayed with Agent Orange suffered from birth defects three times more than in other places. She published her research and joined the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA). With over 4,000 members, VAVA seeks accountability for the damage done by Agent Orange and brings relief to its victims.

For PHUONG, the battle has not only been in the laboratory but also on the international stage. She has taken up the cause of Agent Orange victims with the American Public Health Association, among other forums, and supported legal action to seek compensation from chemical companies. She is widely respected wherever she goes, recognized for her sincerity and humanity, beyond political considerations.

At the same time, she has remained the ‘baby doctor’ she always was, a pioneer of in vitro fertilization in Vietnam, bringing joy and hope to thousands of Vietnamese families who call her “Dr. Fairy.” She has also served in the National Assembly, championing legislation on family planning and reproductive health.

In electing NGUYEN THI NGOC PHUONG to receive the 2024 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees honors not only a woman and physician of extraordinary dedication and talent, but also the spirit of public service and the message of hope she continues to propagate among her people. At the same time, her work serves as a dire warning for the world to avoid war at all costs as its tragic repercussions can reach far into the future. She offers proof that it can never be too late to right the wrongs of war, and gain justice and relief for its hapless victims.

Honored guests, ladies and gentlemen:

It is with deepest and sincerest gratitude that I accept the 2024 Ramon Magsaysay Award. I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for electing me to receive this recognition.

Being chosen for the Ramon Magsaysay Award is not just my honor; it belongs to all of my colleagues and the peoples of Vietnam who have selflessly dedicated our lives to this cause.

Our journey began in 1976 at Tu Du Hospital, where my colleagues and I conducted a retrospective study followed by numerous surveys and case-control studies on Agent Orange / Dioxin in provinces across Southern Vietnam.

The results were both staggering and horrifying: we have established the causal effects of Agent Orange/Dioxin on birth defects in children of exposed mothers or fathers, as well as various types of cancers observed in people living in the sprayed areas during wartime.

Since 2004, alongside my dedicated and passionate colleagues in VAVA (Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange), we have been raising global awareness about the dangerous effects of Agent Orange, especially the dioxin contaminant, on reproductive health and its carcinogenic impact—effects that are still being felt four generations after the end of the war.

We have also been helping victims by demanding accountability for these horrors and by bringing them much-needed justice, including testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives on the long-term consequences of Agent Orange / Dioxin.

We hope that through our efforts, the quality of life of the millions of victims will improve; and their physical, emotional and spiritual wounds be healed. That we as a country will heal.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award will greatly encourage VAVA members and myself to continue our work, supporting and advocating for the Agent Orange/Dioxin victims as they face life’s profound challenges with remarkable resilience.

This prestigious recognition sends a strong and resounding message to the global community that we need international understanding not warfare; we need conflict resolutions and not weapons of mass destruction; we need peace.

I dedicate Ramon Magsaysay Award to the millions of victims of Agent Orange.

Thank you.

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.

Healthcare is broadly social and deeply personal, particularly with respect to a costly, high-mortality disease like cancer. Cancer can be emotionally and financially devastating for patients and their families, especially the poor. The problem is compounded in places like the North Eastern Region (NER) in India, a remote, “forgotten,” predominantly rural and agricultural border region where access to medical care is difficult. Even in the region’s leading state Assam, where cancer incidence is high amid a population of 35 million, the first cancer hospital was not opened until 1981. Later, a second, the Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (CCHRC) was established in 1996, it was the initiative of a non-profit society of local citizens, funded by public philanthropy on land provided by government.

CCHRC would, however, expand into an innovative, widely admired, full-service cancer care facility after Indian surgical oncologist Dr. Ravi Kannan R. became hospital director in 2007, the first formally-trained oncologist to fill the position. It surprised many that Kannan, who previously headed the surgical oncology department in Adyar Cancer Institute, a major cancer institute in Chennai, would exchange a position in a big city for a small hospital in a remote part of the country. Kannan had a simple answer. It was where he was most needed.

Under Kannan’s leadership, CCHRC became a full-fledged comprehensive cancer hospital and research center. From a hospital with limited facilities when he came on board, it now has twenty-eight departments covering oncology, pathology, radiology, microbiology, epidemiology, tumour registry and palliative care, and other services and specializations. From a staff of only twenty-three, the hospital now employs 451 people.

Kannan saw from the beginning that it was not just a matter of having state-of-the-art cancer facilities. Patient compliance rate to treatment was at 28%. Patients came but did not continue their treatment due to such reasons as the difficulties of traveling long distances, the cost (including the loss of income of family caregivers), and resignation to the belief that the patient would never be cured. Clearly, the underlying reason was poverty. Thus, the hospital introduced such pro-poor initiatives as free treatment, food and lodging, adhoc employment for caregivers, and a homecare program. Hospital team members would travel long distances to train family members in pain management and palliative care, as well as provide free medicines. As a result, patient compliance rates rose to 70%. CCHRC now provides free or subsidized cancer care treatments to an average of 5,000 new patients annually, catering to approximately 20,000 poor patients for treatments and follow-ups. Kannan says, “No one should be denied access to treatment due to want of money.”

The hospital states its vision in these words: “We aim to become a state-of-the-art cancer center that will ensure that no individual develops a cancer that can be prevented, that no patient is denied appropriate cancer treatment for want of resources, that no patient dies in agony and indignity and that no family suffers treatment induced poverty and grief.” It is a clear, bold statement that the hospital translates into actual practice.

Kannan, now fifty-nine-years-old, has served the hospital for nearly seventeen years. He is particularly proud of the people around him who share his vision for the hospital, many of them young professionals attracted and inspired by his leadership. Self-sacrificing and quietly heroic, Kannan lives with his family in Assam and in this remote region continues to work without expectation of public recognition. Reiterating his mission, he says, “To be able to deliver inclusive health care and inclusive cancer care, you must have care available. You must have care that is equitable, accessible, and affordable.”

In electing Ravi Kannan R. to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his devotion to his profession’s highest ideals of public service, his combination of skill, commitment, and compassion in pushing the boundaries of people-centered, pro-poor health care and cancer care, and for having built, without expectation of reward, a beacon of hope for millions in the Indian state of Assam, thus setting a shining example for all.

I bring greetings and warm wishes from India.

This recognition rightfully belongs to many, many people.

This belongs to the Cachar Cancer Hospital Society who dared to dream of such a facility over thirty years ago.

This belongs to all my 450 colleagues in Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre who have passionately believed in our cause and have tirelessly labored in seeing our shared dream of inclusive healthcare and cancer care become a reality for the people that we serve.

This belongs to our local communities including to our government officials and representatives who have reposed their trust in the process of creating Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in our little pocket of land in the state of Assam.

This belongs to the countless individuals and organizations across our great country of India and all across the world who have shown their steadfast commitment and support in the humble work that we do.

Most importantly, this belongs to the people we have treated, the individuals and their families, who have entrusted their lives in our hands without any reservations.

What we do in Silchar is not unique. There are several others who are engaged in similar work in healthcare and other fields who strive to improve the lot of our fellow men and women on this planet.

I believe that the Ramon Magsaysay Award recognizes all of our collaborative spirits and efforts.  I accept this Award on behalf of all of them.

As Bhupen Hazarika, an Assamese bard sang, “‘We’re in the same boat brother. If you tip one end, you gonna rock the other, it’s the same boat brother.'” All lives on this earth are so intimately linked to one another that we cannot afford to be exclusive.

An ancient Sanskrit verse goes thus: Ayam nijam paro veti ganana laghu chetasam, Udar charitanam tu vasudhaiv kutumbakam.  For the wise, the entire earth is one family.

The road to human happiness and fulfillment truly lies in holding every life on this planet sacred and worthy of our love in an all-inclusive spirit. People have given us their time, talents, and treasures not merely to help the sick regain their health but to give much-needed hope to the hopeless. Together, all of us can change the way we take care of sickness and suffering, promote universal health, and control of cancer and other diseases.

Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Nir-Aamayaah | Sarve Bhadraanni Pashyantu, Maa Kashcid-Duhkha-Bhaag-Bhavet | Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

May everyone be happy, be free from all disease, see goodness and auspiciousness in all things, and may none be distressed. May everyone be at peace.

Let us each continue to make efforts both big and small to harness the goodness around us to better the conditions of everyone in need with faith that together, we can make a difference.

Thank you to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this great encouragement that indeed together we can all make a difference.

Stories of otherwise ordinary individuals who, moved by the spirit of pure generosity, can transform the lives of so many, make us feel good and hopeful about the world.

This is the story of fifty-eight-year-old Japanese ophthalmologist TADASHI HATTORI.  Born in Osaka in 1964, he graduated from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in 1993 and then went to work in hospitals in Japan. Asked why he wanted to be a doctor, he said that he had resolved to become one when he was fifteen, after seeing his cancer-stricken father so rudely treated when he was admitted to the hospital. He wanted to become a doctor sensitive to the feelings of patients and their families. In 2002, he visited Hanoi for the first time at the invitation of a Vietnamese doctor and found that in a country where cataract blindness was prevalent, there was a dire lack of eye specialists and up-to-date treatment facilities, such that it was common for people in rural areas to go blind because they did not have access to needed care or could not afford the cost. He was deeply moved. And what started out as a visit became a life mission. When he returned to Japan, he used his savings to buy medical equipment to donate and went back to Hanoi. This set him off on a life of shuttling between Japan and Vietnam almost every month, spending a total of 180 days in Vietnam—giving free eye treatments; training Vietnamese doctors; donating equipment and supplies to hospitals—and then the rest of the year in Japan, working in hospitals to raise an income for his family and mission.

Explaining his passion to help, he says: “Whether people can see or not decisively affects their lives. Even just healing one eye may make it possible for someone to attend a school or go back to work. It can give relief to family members who have been looking after an affected person. I can’t turn my back on people who are on the verge of losing their sight just because they lack the money to pay for treatment. My starting point as a doctor is to help people.” Perhaps remembering his father, Hattori says, “A doctor should have not only the skills but also the heart. That’s why my motto is, ‘Treat your patients as your parents’.”

To date, HATTORI and his team of Vietnamese doctors have treated more than 20,000 patients. Driven, HATTORI would perform forty to fifty cataract operations or six to eight vitrectomies per day. He has trained more than thirty Vietnamese doctors who can now perform sophisticated eye operations, and he has donated or facilitated the donation of medical equipment to local hospitals. Cognizant that the need is greatest in the rural areas, he has led medical missions with a team of Vietnamese doctors, giving free treatments and performing surgeries for thousands of people.

To support and upscale his work, HATTORI founded the Asia-Pacific Prevention of Blindness Association (APBA) in 2005, with him as executive director, to enlist participation in training doctors, helping hospitals, and conducting free treatment and surgeries. In 2014, with investors and medical colleagues, he founded the Japan International Eye Hospital in Hanoi, one at par with Japan’s top ophthalmic hospitals, to serve paying patients as a way of building a sustainable fund for free outreach programs.

HATTORI is a highly skilled practitioner, currently regarded as one of Japan’s leading surgeons in vitrectomy and phaco surgery. Even if he is called “the man with the golden hands” because of his expertise as a surgeon, he insists that it is still the heart that matters most. Hattori is the epitome of a professional that has demonstrated the highest form of individual social responsibility.

In electing TADASHI HATTORI to receive the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his simple humanity and extraordinary generosity as a person and a professional; his skill and compassion in restoring the gift of sight to tens of thousands of people not his own; and the inspiration he has given, by his shining example, that one person can make a difference in helping kindness flourish in the world.

I stand here today, honoured and humbled to be conferred the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, the greatest honour.

I am by no means an elite doctor. I kept failing entrance exams. It took me four years to be accepted at a medical school, and seven more years to graduate. But the reason why I did not give up is because of a promise I made to myself when I was seventeen years old. That was when I overheard the medical staff speaking disrespectfully to my father who was fighting his last fight against cancer. I said to myself then that I will become a doctor who can empathize with the feelings of patients. That conviction stayed has stayed with me since.

I parted with what comfortable life I had in Japan for a new challenge in Vietnam twenty years ago because of that same conviction. There was a shocking prevalence of cataract blindness in the country.  What was more shocking was that patients typically would come to the hospital only when they are in a dire situation…when they have lost sight in both eyes.

I once met a six-year-old boy whose one eye was already light negative, the other with retinal detachment. He needed eye surgery urgently. But on the day of the surgery, he did not show up.  He could not afford the surgery.  How was this six-year-old going to live the rest of his life? Wasn’t there anything that I could have done? I have not been able to forgive myself since then for having let the boy go. That was when I decided that when patients cannot pay, I will simply tell them, “No worries, it will be alright. I will pay for you from my own pocket money, and so please have the surgery.”

Most of you may never have been conscious that you can see. Now, may I ask all of you here, to close both your eyes just for a moment?  How would you feel if you have to live in that darkness for the rest of your life, and that you will have to depend on your family to assist you all your life?  How would you feel, if you were that six-year-old boy?

Please open your eyes now.

It scares me too, to think of life without light.  But that is precisely the situation millions of people still find themselves in today.

When a child cannot read or write, unable to go to school because of blindness, it means the child is deprived of the opportunity to explore the full potential of life that God has given.  There are adults who cannot see, and live every day feeling helpless, useless and hopeless simply because they do not see the light ahead in life.  If there is anything that I can do as an ophthalmologist, it is to bring light to such people, so that they will turn their despair to hope and live a better life that they deserve to live.

As I said, I am in no way an elite doctor. I am just filled with joy when patients smile when they see light again. I find happiness in working with the doctors that I trained, and in providing free treatments for people across the region in Asia.

My wish is to be where there is a need, where there are people who want to see light, because I know that regaining vision is not only about being able to see, but about discovering hope in life.

Let there be light. God bless you all.

In times of great uncertainties, danger, and stress, mental health becomes an issue of public concern. Yet, the problem does not quite get the needed response in terms of public health programs, facilities, and services. In this context, the initiatives taken by private individuals and organizations are extremely important.

An inspiring example is that of fifty-four-year-old Cambodian psychiatrist SOTHEARA CHHIM. He was only seven-years-old when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia in 1975 and forced the people of Phnom Penh and other cities to rural camps for a regimen of slave labor and reeducation. Children, like CHHIM, were separated from their parents to work in these camps. It took more than three years before CHHIM was reunited with his family when Phnom Penh was liberated in 1979.

Amid the psychological devastation wrought by a genocidal rule that claimed 1.7 million lives, CHHIM studied medicine at Phnom Penh’s University of Health Sciences and was among the first Cambodian psychiatrists to graduate after years of war. The challenge that faced CHHIM was forbidding. It is said that 40% of Cambodians suffer from mental health problems. Yet, even today, the resources needed to address the problem are direly lacking. Only 2% of health centers and 59% of referral hospitals offer mental health services to outpatients. There are only two psychiatric inpatient units with a total of fourteen beds to serve a country of about 15 million.

In 2002, CHHIM assumed a leading role in mental health as executive director of Cambodia’s Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO). (The organization started as a branch of Netherlands-based TPO International but became an independent organization in 2000.) TPO Cambodia is the largest non-government organization in the field of mental health care and psychosocial support in Cambodia. Based in Phnom Penh, it has more than forty medical professionals and staff and has satellite offices in four provinces. It is guided by these principles: it is community-based, psychosocial (takes mental health in the context of community and society), capability-building (empowers people to survive and thrive), and integrative.

TPO worked on the “Truth, Trauma, and the Victims of Torture” project at the time the Khmer Rouge Tribunal was investigating the Cambodian genocide (CHHIM took part as an expert witness). TPO conducted treatment and training in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in tandem with Documentation Center of Cambodia, the organization devoted to documenting the genocide. As a method of trauma assessment and treatment, TPO practiced “testimonial therapy,” a localized version of an internationally recognized treatment method developed for PTSD cases resulting from mass, organized violence. With the help of therapists, survivors put into writing their traumatic experiences. A formal testimony is produced, which is then presented by the survivor in a public ceremony presided over by a monk. It is a ritual with healing, spiritual effects. At this time, CHHIM also developed the Cambodian concept of baksbat (broken courage), a post-traumatic state of fear, passivity, and avoidance. Deemed more nuanced and appropriate to the Cambodian experience than “post-traumatic stress disorder,” it is now used by TPO for trauma assessment and treatment.

TPO-Cambodia’s activities include gender-based violence counseling for victims of rape, forced marriages, and other forms of violence against women; a hotline service that provided counselling and referrals during the Covid-19 pandemic; and Operation Unchain, which provided treatment to mentally-ill patients locked up or chained at home and educated families on how to better care for these patients. The TPO Clinic in Phnom Penh has served thousands of patients. It is not, however, the center of CHHIM’s work. CHHIM says: “When I work in the clinic, I see only individuals, one to one with a patient. When I’m in the community, I see the people, the whole family, and the community.” This is where the mental health worker should be.

In electing SOTHEARA CHHIM to receive the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his calm courage in surmounting deep trauma to become his people’s healer; his transformative work amidst great need and seemingly insurmountable difficulties, and for showing that daily devotion to the best of one’s profession can itself be a form of greatness.

I am still in disbelief to be here in Manila to receive Asia’s most prestigious prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

This Award is very special to me on both a professional and personal level.  It is an acknowledgment of the work that my organization, Transcultural Psychosocial Organization-Cambodia, have done to alleviate the suffering of the Cambodian people from trauma and mental health problems over the past decades.

As Cambodia’s history has shaped my career path, please allow me to quickly share with you my own personal history.

I was born into a family of architects.  Since childhood, I have dreamt of becoming one and to build a skyscraper in Phnom Penh.  My dreams and plans were shattered when the Khmer Rouge regime reigned in Cambodia for three years, eight months and twenty days.  During this regime, the intellectuals in the country were brutally murdered with only 40 doctors surviving. We felt traumatized and demoralized. We Cambodians were all living in deep trauma and with baksbat, literally meaning “broken courage.”

Given our dire situation, my mother insisted that I study medicine and become a doctor.  There is a great need to help save people’s lives.  Thus, I stopped pursuing my own dream and decided to be an obedient son.

As a young doctor in remote areas, I saw the great need for psychosocial help.  I realized that this was perhaps my calling, to provide much-needed psychosocial care to my countrymen, especially those in the rural areas.

My organization, TPO-Cambodia, offers mental health services to hundreds of thousands of Cambodians.  Through our tireless efforts, the stigma on mental health has been reduced; and now more people seek mental health care.

This Award comes with a prize money.  I am donating all of this to TPO’s initiative, “Operation Unchain Project,” to continue to treat and unchain more patients who are in  need of help.  I will continue to implement this project until there are no more patients chained in the country.

I can stand before you today without hesitation to say that I have no regrets in following my mother’s advice.  She has always taught me to do the right thing.  After all, she named me “Sotheara” which means gentle, humble, kind, and compassionate.  I hope that I have lived up to this name.

Words cannot express my sincerest gratitude to be given the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

But please allow me to thank the Foundation for this great honor.

I would like to thank my wonderful TPO family, who have been working with me in this advocacy.  Forty-three of them are here today to celebrate with me.

I also wish to thank my Filipino professor, Dr. Cornelio Banaag, who taught me psychiatry in Phnom Penh 26 years ago.

And most importantly, I would like to thank my family, especially my beautiful, beloved wife Chantara, and my two children–Chan Charia and Chan Oussa–who are always by my side in my life. Without their support, I will not be able to do this work.

I wish everyone in Asia the five precepts of Buddha: Longevity, Beauty, Health, Strength, and Wisdom.

In the current global pandemic, science has become a subject of public discourse to a degree perhaps unprecedented in recent decades. Emerging from the laboratory to the public square, science has been politicized, but mostly people have become more acutely aware of the vital role of science in improving the quality of life and preserving life itself. Let us then praise science and scientists.

Bangladeshi FIRDAUSI QADRI, seventy years old, was born to a middle-class family that encouraged women to pursue an education and a career. Early on, she decided to specialize in medical research, earning a degree in biochemistry, and culminating in a doctorate from Liverpool University in the United Kingdom. Set on working in her homeland, she taught in a local university and in 1988 joined the International Centre For Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), an international health research institute based in Dhaka. Here, Dr. QADRI focused on communicable diseases, immunology, vaccine development and clinical trials.

Her most challenging engagements came in the fight against cholera and typhoid, major diseases in Bangladesh and Asian and African countries with poor access to safe water, sanitation, education, and medical care. In this, she had a key role in the development of a more affordable oral cholera vaccine (OCV) and the typhoid conjugate vaccine (Vi-TCV) for adults, children, and even infants as young as nine months. Under the auspices of World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), she led a team of experts in the 2017-2020 OCV mass vaccination of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, thus preventing a mass cholera outbreak in what is the largest refugee camp in the world. In 2020, she helped facilitate the OCV vaccination of 1.2 million people in six high-risk districts of Dhaka. Not surprisingly, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. QADRI was involved in vaccine trials and Covid-19 testing and research in Bangladesh.

Beyond current health interventions, Dr. QADRI dreams of building in Bangladesh the human and technical infrastructure for research in health science. It is a role she is well positioned to fill, having participated in scientific networks and institutions both locally and globally. In 2012 she was awarded the Christophe Rodolfe Grand Prize from the Fondation Christophe et Rodolfe Mérieux. Two years later, she used her prize money to found the Institute for Developing Science and Health Initiatives (ideSHi). Dr. QADRI leads ideSHi, which conducts biomedical research and runs training courses and a testing center. It has become a hub of scientific activity by local and visiting scientists in Bangladesh.

Dr. QADRI loves to train and mentor young scientists and inspire them by putting them in contact with well-known scientists in other countries. But building local capability is her greater goal. She is focused on upgrading laboratories so that Bangladeshi scientists will not have to go abroad (as she did early on) for lack of facilities available. Building local capability is demonstrated in her work on typhoid and cholera vaccines (already approved in Bangladesh and other countries), her current work on E. coli diarrhea vaccine, and interest in Covid-19 vaccine development.

Dedicated to science, she believes that finding answers to the health problems in her country will benefit other countries as well. She has worked in Bangladesh as a scientist for more than forty years but has no thought of retiring. Of her research niche, ideSHi, she says: “I want it to be bigger in the coming years and self-supporting in the future, less dependent on international funding. It should carry out research at the highest level and have a good number of scientists who will carry out this work. I am looking at that in the future.”

In electing FIRDAUSI QADRI to receive the 2021 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her passion and life-long devotion to the scientific profession; 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.

I am overwhelmed and extremely delighted but also humbled and thankful to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for this great honor. I am grateful to the Foundation for selecting me, to those who have nominated me and supported my nomination. And, of course, I thank my husband and children and friends, people of Bangladesh, and my team at icddr,b and ideSHi for their continued support.

Dear friends, let me share with you my journey until this very day:

I was born in Bangladesh, in a middle-class family with many other girl siblings, in a family dominated by women. This matriarchal family was actually headed by my grandmother, Firdausi Bano, after whom I was named. She did not go to school herself but was self-taught and knew many languages. She believed in girls’ education and saw to it from our childhood that we sisters learn to have a purpose and determination in life. She saw us off to school with tasty tiffin boxes each day and would always be waiting for us with hot lunches. She cooked and stiched pretty dresses for us and made us feel like we were special. It was for her that I grew up with a determination to do something purposeful.

When I was around five years old, I already wanted to be in public health, and my first wish was to be “Florence Nightingale,” and from then onwards, I kept on changing my interests until I got into the University of Dhaka to study Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. This was when I learned the details of the physiology, biochemistry, immunology, nutrition, and molecular biology of life and the working of the human body.

It was with great interest that I tried to assimilate all this information and my efforts were always aligned to better understanding all the health and nutritional problems of people in my country. After doing my PhD from Liverpool University, I returned to Dhaka within a week. I started teaching at the University of Dhaka and tried to carry out research. But it was difficult for me to do both research and teaching simultaneously. Within six years, I realized that I was born a researcher and a full academic profession somehow left me dissatisfied. Although fortunate to start my profession as a teacher in the best university in Bangladesh, I soon moved to icddr,b to become a full-time researcher.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know how much you know about Bangladesh.

In the beginning of my career, I had to learn a lot about the public health problems confronting our country. Infectious diseases in the 1980s were still a major killer in the country. Cholera and typhoid though these are ancient diseases were still causing so much suffering and misery to people every day. Our icddr,b hospitals were filled up with mostly needy people seeking free care suffering from dehydrating diarrheal disease, especially cholera. I involved and immersed myself in laboratory work to understand the immunological basis of the disease. I started exploring ways to connect clinical work in the early 1980’ with laboratory experiments to answer questions that still remained unaddressed. The role of vaccines to protect against these diseases appeared to me to be the most important solution in tackling these problems.

Indeed, I was inspired by the work that was being carried out for so long at icddr,b both in clinical care and vaccine development. Although I published a lot, I soon realized that if I do not reach out to communities and tried to help them, I would end up my career and not achieve anything. I then decided to focus on studies to reach out to people to protect them against cholera and typhoid using solutions offered by vaccines, which are the main public health tool/short term tools for eliminating diseases from high-risk populations with poor access to clean water, sanitation, good living conditions-basically diseases of poverty-stricken people.

In 33 years of my research career, I have attempted to learn about different aspects of public health which is needed for implementation science. I do not know how much I have been able to deliver and contribute. I am grateful for this award to Bangladesh, to icddr,b, the institution that has given me the environment and encouragement to carry out my work, and last but not least to my great team in Bangladesh and all over the world without whose support I could never have achieved anything. I thank my family for their support.

Ladies and gentlemen, I finish on a very tragic and sad note. My husband passed away just several hours after the official announcement of the Ramon Magsaysay Award on 31 August 2021. He could not hear this wonderful news. His encouragement and strong support in the 45 years of our marriage have made it possible for me to dedicate my life to science and balance family life with research. I remain indebted to him. I want to share a message he wrote to me 46 years ago:

“Wish you God Speed, May Allah grant you much glory in your search for knowledge”

He is not here today to join in this celebration but his wishes for me have come true. I feel his presence all the time, and he will always be with me.

After receiving the Ramon Magsaysay Award, I now feel that I need to deliver even more for Bangladesh, for the people living in low- and middle–income countries, and for people living in fragile settings. The award has made me feel more responsible, and I promise to dedicate the rest of my life to public health and contribute to saving lives.

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among the world’s developed countries.  The incidence of teenage suicides is particularly disturbing.  Official statistics indicated that in 2005 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the suicide rate among middle and high school students stood at 7.6 students per 100,000.  The causal factors are complex but what stands out is that more than half of the suicides were directly related to school bullying.

In 1995, KIM JONG-KI was a highly successful businessman handling market operations in China for a giant Korean electronics company.  Married, with a son and daughter, he was at the height of his career when tragedy struck.  He was traveling in China when he learned that his sixteen-year-old son, Dae-hyun, had committed suicide, leaving no clues as to the reason; JONG-KI would learn later from Dae-hyun’s friends that it was bullying in school that drove him to end his life.  The suicide devastated the family. It was no consolation to them that bullying and school violence were not recognized as life-threatening problems by the government or Korean society. Worse, those who repeatedly inflicted violence on his son continued to bully others. Heartbroken, JONG-KI knew he had to do something to channel his grief and to prevent similar youth tragedies.

In the year his son died, JONG-KI established the Foundation for Preventing Youth Violence (FPYV), the first organized effort in South Korea to address school violence as a systemic social problem affecting students, families, schools, and the community-at-large.  At that time, there were no means in the country for JONG-KI to complain and seek help.  There was little public awareness of the scale and seriousness of school violence—even the term was not recognized. School violence was regarded as mere fighting, normal among teenagers.  Government and schools did not want public attention on the issue; victims and their parents were afraid, or just did not want to speak out.  FPYV’s initial activity was to hold a press conference where JONG-KI spoke candidly about Dae-hyun’s suicide and the bullying that triggered it; this was the very first time the problem of youth violence and its destructive consequences was bravely acknowledged in public.

Over the next twenty-four years, JONG-KI and his staff painstakingly developed a holistic program of detection, protection, and management in youth violence.  Under JONG-KI’s committed leadership, FPYV carried out wide-ranging anti-bullying campaigns which included seminars, rallies, concerts and films; operated a hotline which now takes thirty to fifty calls daily, with the capacity to dispatch staff to respond to urgent cases, and lobbied for needed government policy and legislation.  After ten years, a law on the prevention and handling of school violence was finally enacted in 2004.  Today, FPYV offers counseling and mediation services nationwide in partnership with Korea’s Ministry of Education.  Its pioneering dispute mediation and reconciliation program pays as much attention to reforming bullies and healing families as it does to protecting victims. Its educational initiatives include a campaign against cyber bullying through a “digital citizenship” program.  In 2010, it started an institute offering both onsite and online certificate training programs on youth violence prevention, detection, and management that has since certified thousands of teachers, parents, counselors, police officers, and others.

The impact of JONG-KI and FPYV on Korean society has been profound, establishing a nationwide presence and creating collective action on a social problem hitherto neglected.  A 2018 survey showed that since FPYV started its campaign in 1995, the incidence of school violence has dropped from twenty percent to three percent. Yet JONG-KI knows that there is still much work to be done, even as he explains his work simply, “It was God’s command that I contribute my life to this cause.  It is my promise to my son.”  It is a promise he has fulfilled not only to his son but to the good of all of Korea’s youth.

In electing KIM JONG-KI to receive the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quiet courage in transforming private grief into a mission to protect Korea’s youth from the scourge of bullying and violence, his unstinting dedication to the goal of instilling among the young the values of self-esteem, tolerance, and mutual respect, and his effectively mobilizing all sectors of the country in a nationwide drive that has transformed both policy and behaviors towards building a gentler, non-violent society.

I am so grateful to receive such an honorable and prestigious award. This award is the greatest comfort and reward in my life.

I used to be a businessman: someone who was tied to work and neglected his family. In my generation, everyone worked very hard. No one had time for their families, and I was like that, too.  Then, one day, I lost my beloved son. He ended up taking his own life, as he was unable to bear violence in school. Suddenly, I became the most miserable father in the world.  The shock and sorrow of losing my son drove my family to despair.

Wishing for forgiveness from my son and taking responsibility for my son’s death, I left my job and got into solving problems for the youth. I started with raising awareness on the reality of school violence and providing counseling for students and families who suffered from it. However, we faced huge challenges from the beginning—not only the absence of experts or studies on school violence but also the disapproval of education authorities made our work more difficult. But, I could not stop because it was the promise I made to my son.

Since then, I have never looked back and dedicated all my energies and fortune to changing the perception and responses toward school violence with unceasing determination. I led a nationwide campaign to gather signatures, receiving support from 470,000 citizens urging the law’s passage. This resulted in the Special Act on Preventing School Violence made into law in 2004. The law put strong pressure on government authorities and schools to take proper action. Finally, we were able to make positive changes, such as reducing school violence through various campaigns and legislation. Also, education authorities started to build nationwide measures and systems. I am very proud of these achievements. The work that started from my personal sorrow finally made a difference in the Korean education system and society.

Our organization is dedicated to providing counseling, educating teachers and police officers, leading non-violence campaigns, scholarship projects, and international activities. We started with only five people; now, we have 340 staff members nationwide. Also, the rate of school violence has dropped from 20% to 6% in the last twenty-four years. Our organization pursues the values of sincerity, professionalism, and transparency. As it grew to be a leading NGO specializing in youth problems, I am proud that we have contributed to Korean society.

I have gone through extreme hardships but poured out my passion, personal resources and connections to fulfill my goals. Management skills I obtained from my previous work also helped. To be honest, there were many times I wanted to give up, but it was my promise to my son. I finally found peace of mind, as I took this work as my destiny and mission from God. As society becomes more industrialized and materialistic, school violence perpetrators and victims are getting younger. And with the internet, incidents of cyber and sexual violence are on the rise. We have to gather our wisdom and efforts to protect our children.

Though this award is given to me, I would like to share the honor and prize with our dedicated staff and respectable supporters and volunteers. Taking this award as a stepping stone, I will dedicate myself to making a non-violent environment not only for students but also all human beings.

I thank every single person in the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation. Special thanks to my friends who came here with me all the way from Korea, the Board of Directors of my organization and my loving wife who has sacrificed everything for me.

I am sure my son is smiling at me from heaven. Thank you very much.

In few countries is the contrast between great wealth and extreme poverty as stark as in India. Of the latter, a popular image are its street people, dirty, disheveled, and famished, huddled on pavements, in train stations, bus stands, and public shrines. An estimated 400,000 of them are mentally ill, victimized not so much by poverty as by a problem society has not sufficiently understood and addressed: the problem of mental health. Stigmatized and feared, the response of many to these street persons is to pretend they do not exist.

One man chose not to pretend. Psychiatrist BHARAT VATWANI was out dining in a restaurant with his wife Smitha, also a psychiatrist, when they were appalled at the sight of a thin, unkempt man drinking water from a street canal. Taking time to talk to the man, a mentally-afflicted college graduate, they decided to bring him to their clinic to be washed and treated. This show of empathy was not entirely surprising. VATWANI knew what poverty was like. Losing his father when he was only 12 years old forced him and his brothers to take odd jobs, like peddling books door-to-door. Struggling through school as a self-supporting student, VATWANI successfully completed his medical studies in psychiatry at Grant Medical College and at G.S. Medical College & Hospital, both in Mumbai.

After their encounter with the man who drank water from a canal, Dr. VATWANI and his wife started an informal operation of bringing mentally-ill street persons to their private clinic for treatment. This eventually led to the establishment of Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in 1988, aimed at rescuing mentally-ill persons living on the streets; providing free shelter, food, and psychiatric treatment; and reuniting them with their families.

Starting with a two-room tenement that could take only three people at a time, Shraddha drew public attention when they rescued and treated a street person who turned out to be a respected lecturer at a Mumbai art school, who had inexplicably disappeared. Learning about what the VATWANIs had done, the school’s faculty and students organized a major art exhibition that drew 141 participating artists in India and abroad, and successfully raised US$22,357. Using this seed money, the VATWANIs bought a piece of property in Mumbai for a 20-bed facility that they opened in 1997; the unexpected donation inspired them to further expand their work with the help of private donors, volunteer professionals, and social workers. In 2006, they moved to a bigger 120-patient facility in Karjat outside Mumbai, which had five buildings on a 6.5-acre land. By then, they had strengthened their three-phase therapeutic program, consisting of the rescue and treatment of mentally-ill street persons, reuniting patients with their families, and promoting awareness of mental health in communities.

Their rescue work has been aided by the police, social workers, and referrals. Shraddha’s free custodial care and treatment ranges from personal hygiene, medical check-ups, psychiatric treatment, to appropriate medication—all done in the open, healing environment of the Karjat facility where patients can engage in simple farm activities and find solace in a multi-religious meditation center. The foundation tracks patients’ families, arranges reunions, and uses such opportunities to spread a supportive and enlightened understanding of mental health among the families and their communities. In a one-of-a-kind mission that began in 1988, VATWANI and the foundation have by now rescued, treated, and reintegrated into their families and communities more than 7,000 of India’s mentally-ill roadside destitute, with a remarkable reunion rate of 95%.

VATWANI’s painstaking, humane undertaking has had to contend with numerous challenges. A deeply spiritual person, the good doctor is often beset by doubts whether he has done enough, given the magnitude of the mental health problem in his country. Notwithstanding these self-doubts, he remains confident in his faith that in the end, “Good work shall continue when there is inherent goodness in the work.”

In electing BHARAT VATWANI to receive the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his tremendous courage and healing compassion in embracing India’s mentally-afflicted destitute, and his steadfast and magnanimous dedication to the work of restoring and affirming the human dignity of even the most ostracized in our midst.

From the beginning of Time, the world has always been a conflict between between Right and Wrong, between Truth and Evil, between Justice and Injustice. Ultimately, community leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Vinoba Bhave, Martin Luther King, The Dalai Lama, Baba & Prakash Amte, irrespective of their particular sphere of activities, support, and are torch bearers of the former. And have ended up becoming emissaries of Truth itself. Often reaching far beyond where the stone thrown into the pond of Life falls, are the implications of the ripples that the stone hitting the water has caused. And the Ramon Magsaysay Award, by recognizing individuals from Asia, has further added to the distance of the ripples created by Asian social Emissaries. It is not individual causes that we as Awardees represent, it is the hope of a collective good, a hope that Truth and God shall prevail within Mankind. And that ultimately we shall join in eternal bonding to the greater Cosmos of a God’s Creation beyond.

Despite this, the cause of the wandering mentally ill roadside destitute which our NGO Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation espouses, does deserve its place under the sun, as an unspoken tragedy that has befallen mankind. This is because the mental illness causing the destitute to end up on the roads, is not of his/her own making. The wandering mentally ill are shunned, rejected and denied. They brave the chilling winters, the searing summers and the torrential rains for months, years, often decades on end. And continue to be shunned, rejected and denied. To the point of non-existence. And to correct this Injustice, at least in India, was born Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation.

We had naively thought during its inception, that in the span of our lifetimes, a lot would change for India’s wandering mentally ill. But today, having read a lot of literature on the psyche of social workers, both the famous and the not-so-famous, the heard and the not much written about, I am well aware that the laying down of one lifetime may well be inadequate for a cause. Lincoln had his bouts of deep soul-searching depression. But the cause which he fought for viz racial discrimination has not been sorted out in its entirety, till date. Nobel Laureate Tagore wrote ‘Into that Heaven of Freedom, my Father, let my Country awake..’ 75 years on, his Country is yet to realize his vision. Lincoln and Tagore and those millions of silent strugglers all over the world, who have partaken in ideological wars over innumerable years, have taught us that Change is a Slow Process. However strong and deep rooted be the emotions, however piercing the inner outcry against social disparity or injustice, howsoever passionate the associated intrinsic desire for change, the wheels of the Gods move slowly, albeit very slowly.

And to silently continue on your chosen path, with your nose to the grind, like the faceless, nameless, anonymous soldier carrying the half-hoisted flag of Truth on his shoulder, becomes at some point of time, the wheel of silent revolution in your own silent unwritten destiny. Leading one to understand the Gospel Philosophy of the Sages of Yore that truth is Truth only when it has the capacity to stretch beyond the limits of all endurance, light is Light only when it has the capacity to pierce the darkness. I end this outpouring with a few lines from one of my earliest poems –

If Life,
could be founded on hope,
And Wisdom,
on mere understanding,
Then the horizons would be mine,
The rainbows notwithstanding,
But I had nothing,
Just this pen, paper and a few words,
And my feelings for you,
From the beginning of time….

The Ramon Magsaysay Award affirms the spirit of humanity that endures even under the most difficult of circumstances. My work with children and adults living with war, disaster, and other hardships has shown me that even in the context of terrible violence, loss and suffering, there is always the possibility of growth, caring, and hope. Life cannot only continue despite pain and hardships, but can take on new meaning and purpose.

Working in war-affected Eastern Sri Lanka in the mid-1990s, I saw how, with encouragement and assistance, children on the small tidal island of Nasivantheevu found the courage to negotiate with the warring parties to allow safe passage for the bus that took them to school, enabling access to an education that would transform their lives.

I met a soldier who had lost both his legs in combat, who had thrice considered suicide, and could hardly bear to sit with a member of another ethnic group. I witnessed how, through personal contact, this young man was able to set aside his anger to care for an older woman from a community he deeply mistrusted.

Working with widows suddenly thrust into new roles in a society that stigmatized them, I saw how women’s determination and hard work enabled them to overcome challenges to secure a life for themselves and their children.

Whether working with children or adults, with individuals or groups, my 4 decades of experience has taught me that healing and transformation always starts with the person. For people who are in deep pain to begin to heal, it is essential for them to gain self-awareness and acceptance, which in turn shapes their capacity for healthy relationships with others or even towards themselves. This kind of personal growth is often something people overwhelmed by suffering find difficult to do for themselves, but with support and loving care from another human being, like the beautiful lotus that emerges from the mud, these people can be helped to bloom despite the pain they have experienced.

As individuals, we often feel that we can’t do big things. But we can do small things. All change starts with a person. When one person becomes brighter and relates to others with genuine love, then small groups of individuals can form around them, creating small ripples of change in the world.

I believe that each of us is a tool for the healing of ourselves, for the healing of others and for the healing of the societies we live in. No matter who or where we are, we can play a role in making the world a kinder and better place. This is the message that I would like to share with you all.

Inequity in health care is the single most important health problem in many countries in the world. In the Philippines, where government health financing is weak, such inequity has been catastrophic in its effects. The nation’s poor are effectively deprived of access to quality and affordable health care, and suffer starkly higher mortality from preventable and treatable diseases. Building a public health system that includes and benefits all is an urgent national challenge.

ERNESTO DOMINGO, a seventy-six year-old physician, has dedicated his career to this challenge. A well-respected but unprepossessing specialist in hepatology and gastroenterology, DOMINGO has always valued the social side of his profession, devoting over four decades to the University of the Philippines-Manila (UPM) as researcher, teacher, chancellor, and university professor meritus. Passionate about science, he organized the UPM Liver Study Group and led in groundbreaking studies of viral hepatitis and liver disease which established the causative connection between chronic hepatitis-B and liver cancer. By determining as well the preventive solution to liver cancer—the immunization of newborns against hepatitis-B within twenty-four hours from birth reduces the probability of acquiring hepatitis by 95 percent—his research has saved millions of people from the danger of life-threatening illness, and reduced health care costs. Deeply concerned about the poor’s access to health care, he has pushed for hepatitis vaccination to be mandatory and available to all. Working closely with legislators, he has also successfully lobbied for a law that ensures annual budgetary support for neonatal hepatitis immunization.

From groundbreaking scientific discovery, to policy advocacy, to securing implementation resources, he has painstakingly demonstrated how medical science can truly protect and promote the quality of life of everyone, especially the poor.

His public health advocacy extends to an even wider field. In 2008, DOMINGO and distinguished colleagues formed the Universal Health Care (UHC) Study Group, a group committed to advancing, through research and advocacy, the goal of universal health care in the Philippines. Based on intensive studies of the country’s health system, the group produced a Blueprint for Universal Health Care and then actively campaigned for its adoption when the current administration assumed power in 2010. As co-convenor of the group, DOMINGO was influential in crafting the government’s Kalusugang Pangkalahatan (Universal Health Care) Program. And he has gone on to head, without compensation, the newly-formed Research Reference Hub of the Department of Health, which manages all health-related researches and translates research results into policies and plans in the government’s health care program.

DOMINGO is heartened to see that with the government’s commitment to Kalusugang Pangkalahatan, the Department of Health’s budget has doubled in three short years, a greater focus on health equity issues has led to some 80 percent of the population now enrolled in the national health insurance program, and public health care delivery capacities are being upgraded.

“Medicine is basically a social science,” DOMINGO says. “When you deal with families and communities, it cannot be anything else.” His conviction that diseases and their treatment cannot be detached from existing social conditions has driven him to espouse visionary reforms in health education and human resources, calling for greater social content in medical education and a shift from a “doctor-centered” system by empowering nurses, midwives, and other health workers. With colleagues in the UHC Study Group, he declares: “Our goal is to make the dream of health care based on health needs—rather than the ability to pay—a reality for the Philippines within the near future.”

In electing ERNESTO DOMINGO to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his exemplary embrace of the social mission of his medical science and profession, his steadfast leadership in pursuing “health for all” as a shared moral responsibility of all sectors, and his groundbreaking and successful advocacy for neonatal hepatitis vaccination, thereby saving millions of lives in the Philippines.

I had the privilege of meeting President Ramon Magsaysay in person and shaking his hand. That was in 1953, when I graduated from high school. He was our commencement speaker. As I vividly recall, he was a physically imposing man with a handshake to match.

His physical attribute was complemented by an equally formidable moral certitude, very much appreciated by his people. Such appreciation was copiously expressed by the tears they shed upon his untimely death.

It is a humbling experience to be offered an award established in his memory.

In my more than half a century of involvement in the fields of medical research, health profession education and training, academic administration and advocacy, the most formidable challenge I have had to contend with is bridging the chasm that isolates excellence from relevance. The divide between the two is accurately articulated by the comment of a colleague in the Department of Medicine, who said, and I quote, “The Department’s evolution has been characterized by a recurring confrontation between the ideals of excellence and relevance. The excellence we aim for is often measured in terms of academic achievements. However, the people’s need is our only yardstick for relevance. Thus, what may be academically excellent may be outright irrelevant, while what is relevant may not require excellence at all.”

What my co-workers and I have attempted to do is to bridge this chasm between excellence and relevance. Our strategy is to make available to advocacy the output of medical research, innovative and often radical health professional education and training, and health system study.

Our advocacy is focused on mitigating inequity in health. We are voluntarily helping the Department of Health in its effort to implement the Aquino health agenda, Kalusugang Pangkalahatan, or Universal Health Care. As a solution to inequities in health, Universal Health Care has proven its efficacy worldwide. We should not be an exception.

If these efforts merit your award, then I accept it, without for a moment forgetting, that many colleagues and my family, too, have generously contributed to this enterprise.