The pen has often proven most potent in graphic portrayals. Especially is this true in less literate societies where the cartoon can carry an even more telling message. Mastery of this talent and its employment to illuminate public issues, however, is an art possessed only by a very few. Their technical skill must be complemented by a special receptivity to the often unvoiced yearnings of their fellow citizens.

PRAYOON demonstrated his talent early; as a schoolboy he could not resist sketching cartoons and comics. When misfortune impoverished the family, he was compelled to leave school and find employment as a mail clerk weighing parcels in a railway station. Although frustrated by the dull routine, this experience of physical drudgery broadened his insights when he later found an opportunity to illustrate stories and write heads on the newspaper Prachamit.

In 1938, at the age of 23, PRAYOON became a full-fledged cartoonist with a comic series in the likay style of Thai folk musical drama. His professional alter ego Suklek, a diminutive elfin character with a jaunty feather in his headband, whom he first popularized as Chantakorob, an epic hero, in time acquired a public personality.

The mark of PRAYOON’s stature is his refusal to be content with simply entertaining the public. Rather, conveying an understanding that is more than verbal, he uses his drawings to educate in the most fundamental sense. The issues that become his concern are those affecting every Thai. Seeking to improve the condition of his time, his subjects range from lampooning those who would employ office to further personal power and wealth to supporting the cause of the poor.

In order to retain his independence as a social and political critic, PRAYOON will not accept regular employment as a cartoonist. Instead, he sells his editorial cartoons and comic strips individually. Such major daily newspapers as Thai Rath, Siam Rath and the Bangkok Post, and Krung Thep a news magazine, are regular purchasers of these well-liked features the help build circulation. He takes an intense interest in municipal government and civic programs involving children and, since 1948, has also edited and served as company consultant for the weekly magazine Siam Samai. But time is always set aside for tending the orchids and rabbits he raise among the durian trees in his two-acre orchard where he finds both inspiration and relaxation.

As as independent thinker with humanitarian views, sometime leavened with delightful humor, PRAYOON has adhered to his code of an absolutely free conscience. Avoiding contact with those institutions and individuals he is persuaded do not serve the community good, he has offered Thais and others encouraging reaffirmation that a gifted pen can defend the cause of truth with decency, courage and artistic sensitivity.

In electing PRAYOON CHANYAVONGS to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes his use of pictorial satire and humor for over three decades in unswerving defense of the public interest.

I feel excited, grateful and honored by the Board of Trustees of the Magsaysay Foundation for selecting me as winner of the Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts Award.

I never dreamed that I would ever receive such high honor. I consider the Magsaysay Awards among the noblest awards in history. I am a simple and humble cartoonist who has been working at his craft for most of his life. I still consider myself a student who is forever learning and seeking to improve his art.

I always approach the subjects of my cartoons from an attitude of understanding and friendship and without any intent to create animosities. My main objective is to educate and to create understanding. I am against the idea of taking up arms for war. I hope that people all over the world will take up forks and spoons instead and sit down to dine and converse with each other. I feel that the high honor bestowed upon me is not a personal honor but an honor for the journalists of Thailand and also for the people of Thailand. 

As for myself, I shall continue to work hard. Although the value of the money we received may change, the value of the Award will not change for me. I also shall not change; I shall remain the same old Prayoon, your Prayoon. Thank you.

Only in the 20th century have the great majority of parents around the world come to expect education as a birthright of their children. This near-universal hunger for schooling imposes demands on every government, prompting expectations that are at the root of much popular insistence upon change. 

Historical circumstance and the zeal of early American and Filipino teachers gave the Philippines the first major public school system in South and Southeast Asia. With all its imperfections, our democracy is rooted in this educational system. Yet, it remains inadequate for today’s needs in both educational content and opportunities for schooling for three-fourths of our people who live in rural areas. 

Since he first walked barefooted over the rice paddies as a poor farmer’s son to attend the barrio elementary school in Pangasinan where he was born in 1899, PEDRO ORATA has pursued his interest in education. Upon graduation in 1920 as valedictorian of his high school class in Lingayen, a sister’s savings allowed him to travel to the United States. Working on a railroad gang, washing dishes, and finally with partial pensionado support from the Philippine Government, he earned his Ph.D. in 1927 and came home to join the Bureau of Public Schools. 

After teaching at the Bayambang Normal School and Philippine Normal College and serving in the Division of Research and Measurements, ORATA became successively Division Superintendent of Schools in Isabela and Sorsogon Provinces. Returning to the United States in 1934 as a professor at his alma mater, Ohio State University, he went on to develop an experimental community school on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. Coming home in 1941 he joined the Philippine National Council of Education. 

ORATA’s experience matured into a personal philosophy of education during his enforced idleness in World War II. Caught in Manila by the Japanese occupation, he went back to Urdaneta, Pangasinan. With the Allied liberation early in 1945, he was appointed to reopen the municipality’s schools. Gathering all “degreed” people—doctors, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists and the like—he started a high school in a bombed out church. This first public high school outside of a provincial capital began with 350 students and grew to an enrollment of 1,700, with an additional 1,600 attending 15 branches in the barrios. 

After devoting three years to helping reorganize the war-shattered Philippine school system, ORATA served abroad for 12 years with UNESCO. Upon retiring from this post, he became Dean of the Graduate School and then Director of Curriculum Development at Philippine Normal College. Retiring again at age 65, he devoted his energies without remuneration to organizing barrio high schools and community colleges. With support from the Department of Education and enthusiastic participation by local citizens this barrio high school movement has spread to 43 provinces and six cities. 

Although establishment of barrio high schools alone is no panacea for our educational needs, it is a vital and positive move. Aware that a traditional society needs time for change, ORATA has insisted rural people want and are entitled to opportunities for schooling equal to those in the cities, while urging that the national curriculum be shaped more realistically to Filipino needs. Toward this goal of an educated citizenry he continues to persevere with patience and informed enthusiasm. 

In electing PEDRO TAMESIS ORATA to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes 44 years of creative work in education, particularly his conception and promotion of barrio high schools for rural Filipino youth.

I am unable to find the right words to express my gratitude for the honor which you have bestowed upon my humble self. All I can say is that I will do my utmost to continue deserving the Foundation’s confidence. 

As I have said from the beginning of our work seven years ago, it has been possible to accomplish what we have done because of several very favorable conditions: first, the permissive atmosphere provided by the Department of Education, from the Secretary down to the Division Superintendents and their staffs; second, the wholehearted response and cooperation of the parents, students, and lay leaders who have worked very hard to provide the necessary financial support; and third, the backing of the President, Congress, governors, city and municipal mayors, barrio captains and councilmen, who invariably have put the interest of the people, especially the barrio (village) people, above all other considerations. 

This being so, as I announced in Singapore, the Award really belongs to all the people who made it possible to operate the barrio high schools, community colleges and preschools—despite the opposition of vested interests. Very fortunately, these vested interests are now our allies because they, themselves, are benefiting from these projects in more ways than one, which need not be mentioned. The fact is that there is very little opposition to the continuation and extension of these projects. Our people—all of us—realize at last that unless we help the barrio people in their effort to lift themselves up, they will continue pulling us—all of the rest of us—down. Our well-being and welfare are dependent upon their having equal opportunity to develop their capacities to the utmost for the welfare of all. 

It is for this reason that I have decided that every cent of the Award will be spent towards the extension of the projects, not only in the Philippines but abroad as well. The people in the remaining barrios that have no high schools have as much right to education at all levels as the ones in the 1,600 that have them now. What form the aid will take will be decided in due course, and you will be informed. 

Again, permit me to thank you most sincerely for this Award and I hope I will continue to deserve your confidence.

Whether India, with nearly one-sixth of the human race, can provide sufficient food for her growing numbers in the years ahead depends ultimately upon her farmers. Their performance is closely linked to what science develops and makes operative in rural life. Without continuing refinement of relevant knowledge and its efficient transference, especially to the poorer villages, the “green revolution” may foster more discontent than it satisfies. 

In an age when radioisotopes, a Gamma Garden and chemical mutagens are among the plant breeders’ tools, Dr. SWAMINATHAN is an originative follower of Gregor Johann Mendel, the Austrian monk and botanist who founded genetics over a century ago. A cytogeneticist, in the past 16 years he had made major advances in breeding sturdier, more productive and better quality plant types at the Pusa Institute, as the Agricultural Research Institute outside of Delhi is popularly known. Included in the wide-ranging studies by him and his associates have been India’s most essential food crops—wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, millet, pulses, potatoes and vegetables oils—plus cotton and jute. By purposeful manipulation of genes, he and his co-workers in 1967 developed a dwarf, non-lodging wheat variety—Sharbati Sonora, with amber grains—from Sonora-64 which has red grains and hence a low consumer preference in India. 

An ability and enthusiasm for passing on his knowledge to others in the laboratory, classroom and field, and his prolific writing have earned him a reputation as a most lucid educator. In the past five years since he became Director of the Institute, SWAMINATHAN has proven himself an equally gifted administrator. 

Encouraged by him, scientists at Pusa extended their work to practical application in farmers’ fields. University students were enlisted in this attack upon the limitations to a better life on the land. The primary demonstration arena for these efforts are villages around Delhi where tests of improved seeds—by farmers with whom the Pusa Institute cooperates—have won confidence in their productive potential. As part of a High-Yielding Varieties Program designed by SWAMINATHAN one community was transformed into a “seed village” specializing in controlled multiplication of improved varieties to supply the needs of the entire state, and thousands of demonstrations were laid out by scientists in farmers’ fields throughout India. 

His particular combination of talents has made SWAMINATHAN an acknowledged leader of India’s community of agriculturists. Now 46 years of age, he is carrying forward his Madrasi family tradition of energetic personal emphasis upon professional excellence. That he is doing so with such broadly beneficial results for rural India is the mark of a first-rate scientist who is also a humanist. 

In electing MONCOMPU SAMBASIVAN SWAMINATHAN to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes his contributions as scientist, educator of both students and farmers, and administrator toward generating a new confidence in India’s agricultural capabilities.

I deem it a very great honor and privilege to have been chosen for the Community Leadership Award instituted in the memory of one of the greatest world leaders and humanists of our time. The late President Ramon Magsaysay devoted his tremendous vision, wisdom and energy to the cause of helping his fellowmen build a better life for all. A satisfied stomach is a prerequisite not only for happiness but even to enable men to behave as human beings, a fact so well expressed by the Roman philosopher, Seneca, when he said, “A hungry people listens not to reason nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers.” Even as recently as the mid-sixties, the future of many of the developing nations appeared hopeless when assessed in terms of their ability to feed their fast growing populations. Drs. William and Paul Paddock, in their book Famine Nineteen Seventy-Five!, even went to the extent of comparing the fate of my countrymen after 1975 to that of sheep being led to the slaughterhouse. Then came the avalanche of scientific results from this great country, Mexico, Taiwan and India which opened up altogether new vistas in the yield potential of our major food crops. I consider this award as a tribute which the Magsaysay Foundation would like to pay to the entire community of agricultural scientists in my country who have helped to provide a breathing spell during which efforts can be made to prove the prophets of doom false. 

New concepts of crop planning and land use, designed to get the maximum benefit from he physical, biological and environmental endowments of tropical and subtropical agriculture, are being developed. Where there is water four or even five crops can now be grown in a year in multiple, mixed and relay cropping systems, getting for the farmer the benefit of nearly 450 days of crop growth in a year of 365 days. New methods of water management and enrichment of soil fertility, coupled with crop varieties capable of avoiding the rigors of drought or floods through changes in their life length and coordinated pest control schedules, are opening up new hopes for peasants working in environmentally handicapped areas. The “green revolution” in cereals has paved the way for developing harmonious systems of agriculture and animal husbandry. 

The scientific prospects for alleviating hunger, increasing the avenues for productive and remunerative employment, and banishing poverty through a radical transformation of cropping systems leading to the growth of agro-industries, are fascinating and immense. At the same time the magnitude of the problems of illiteracy, under- and malnutrition, under- and unemployment and population growth are truly staggering. In spite of all efforts, the number of illiterates in absolute terms is growing in many parts of Asia, including India. Leading scientific journals carry data indicating that protein calorie malnutrition in infants may affect the replication of the chemical substance of heredity, DNA, and lead to an irreversible underdevelopment of a child’s intellectual potential, thus compounding the ill effects of the already poor educational opportunities. 

The Indian achievement in wheat production, leading to a near doubling of the total harvest from a little over 12 million tons to over 23 million tons in four crop seasons, has few parallels in recorded agricultural history and serves to illustrate what can be accomplished provided farmers, scientists, extension and communication experts and political and administrative leaders, all function like members of a symphony orchestra. Unless such an orchestration in effort is generated for all crops, a scientific breakthrough may not necessarily lead to a production breakthrough. This is illustrated by the yield stagnation in sorghum in my country where, although new hybrids and varieties capable of yielding two to three times more than the earlier ones have been available since 1964, the yield per hectare has hardly altered in the last decade. Wheat posed fewer pest, management and marketing problems and the farmers responded with enthusiasm to produce as much or even more than what was harvested in the National Demonstration plots put up by scientists in the fields of poor peasants. In other crops like rice, sorghum, maize, millets and pulses, problems of management, pest control, storage, marketing and pricing require sophisticated and coordinated efforts of a type which few developing nations have yet generated. Consequently, a genuine feeling that they have been bypassed by the “green revolution” is growing in the minds of many farmers. 

We are thus faced on one side by great scientific possibilities and on the other by vast problems of organization, coordinated action, communication, and population growth absorbing the fruits of all advance. Those who have the power and capacity to serve their fellowmen—be they scientists, educationists, administrators or political leaders—have probably never had in human history so many challenging opportunities for service and for experiencing the thrill of fulfillment. What is needed is the will to act and the determination to learn and adopt the correct techniques of action, since Asian farmers have given ample evidence in recent years that they are ready for change if the change is for the better economically. 

I would like to end on a personal note. When over 10 years ago my colleagues and I at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute embarked on the relentless pursuit of high incomes from farming through high yields—without detriment to the long term productivity of the soil—we hoped that the high yielding varieties would not only help raise production but would also act as catalysts in bringing about a total transformation in the outlook and agronomic methodology of our rural community. Where sights are limited, action is equally circumscribed and cynical comment is the only reception accorded to new ideas. Mahatma Gandhi referred to this situation over 40 years ago, when addressing those who wished to work in Indian villages. He said, “The fact is the villagers have lost all hope. They suspect that every stranger’s hand is at their throats and that he goes to them only to exploit them. The divorce between intellect and labor has paralyzed our agriculture. The worker should enter villages full of love and hope, feeling sure that where men and women labor unintelligently and remain unemployed half the year round, he working all the year round and combining labor with intelligence cannot fail to win the confidence of the villagers.” I have had the privilege of personally experiencing the wisdom of Gandhi’s recipe. Hence, while accepting the Award for Community Leadership bearing the name of one, whose main characteristic was his passionate love of poor people, I plead in all humility with the young men and women in the universities and scientific institutions of the developing nations to seize the opportunity and power, given them by science, to make real the possibilities of a truly human and meaningful life for millions of their fellow beings. It is to promote this cause that I propose to use the Award.

For the less developed nations of East, Southeast and South Asia, emergence of postwar Japan as the world’s third most powerful industrial state holds both a threat and a promise. They can either become merely suppliers of Japan’s raw materials and markets for her manufactures, or they can march apace in the common conquest of material lags that hobble their cultural well-being. 

More is at issue than economic equity and the expectations of Asia’s one-half of humanity who feel left behind. Should Japan’s headlong progress continue to outstrip the rest of Asia at an ever accelerating rate, the resulting tensions can only prove disastrous for all. Neither sound economics nor lasting cooperation can be built on such disparities. 

Dr. OKITA has recognized these uncomfortable realities and sought to deal with them constructively. Born 57 years ago into the family of a newspaper executive, his career in economics was preceded by study of electrical engineering at Tokyo University. His lifetime interest in development was aroused while working as an engineer in China on electric power sources during World War II. Returning home to become a staff member of the Research Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he helped draft Japan’s economic rehabilitation program during the Allied Occupation. 

Resigning in 1947 in protest against cumbersome bureaucratic methods, OKITA became increasingly a rallying point for Japanese economists seeking to advance sound policies. He was invited to establish and head the Research Section of the Economic Stabilization Board. After studying economic analysis in Europe, America and India, in 1950 he introduced new methods to his colleagues before becoming, in 1952, the first Japanese official of the United Nations when he joined the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East in Bangkok. Returning to Japan two years later to a succession of senior positions within the Economic Planning Agency, OKITA contributed significantly to his country’s strategy for balanced, long-term growth. Aware of the problems elsewhere in Asia, he labored to initiate and expand Japanese economic aid. In 1963 he left government to head the Japan Economic Research Center and in 1971 he became concurrently the President of the newly created International Development Center of Japan. Through writing, training economists, and providing officials, company executives and journalists with economic information, he worked to enlarge Japan’s consciousness of the Asian and Pacific community of which it must be a part. 

OKITA, during his extensive travels and numerous seminars, has freely shared his knowledge with Asian thinkers in work on the Colombo Plan and similar multinational enterprises. His experience, grasp of regional economic needs, and character have encouraged in Japan a more liberal, mutually beneficial attitude toward her neighbors. In the last two decades other Asians, concerned with the future of their own economies and societies, have come to trust OKITA as one of their best friends in Japan. 

In electing SABURO OKITA to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes his sustained and forceful advocacy of genuine Japanese partnership in the economic progress of her Asian neighbors.

It is indeed a great honor and privilege to myself and to my country to be selected to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award. I feel particularly honored because of the fact that the Award was given to me for International Understanding, which is vitally needed by us in Asia. 

It was rather fortunate for me to have had the experience of being involved both in the process of Japan’s postwar economic rehabilitation and in the economic development of other Asian countries. Nearly 20 years ago—in 1952 and 1953—I worked in the Secretariat of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) in Bangkok as the first Japanese national to join the UN service. Incidentally, my first visit to the Philippines was in connection with the Trade Promotion Conference held in Manila in 1958. I made that trip as one of the ECAFE Secretariat staff. 

After returning to the Government Planning Agency from ECAFE, and while working on domestic economic issues, including preparation of the National Income Doubling Plan, I had occasion to attend various international conferences, seminars and discussions on economic development in Asia. Such occasions have become more frequent since I left government service in 1963 and became President of the Japan Economic Research Center. Early this year the International Development Center of Japan was created and I am now concurrently working as its President. The purpose of this new Center is to assist in development planning and to undertake related studies for developing countries. 

As is widely recognized, postwar Japan has made remarkable economic progress. For the past 10 years the average annual rate of economic growth has exceeded 10 percent, and the gross national product reached US$200 billion in 1970, about one-fifth that of the United States. As the population of Japan is approximately half that of the United States, the per capita GNP is about 40 percent of the U.S. per capita GNP. 

All this comprises a success story, but it also marks the beginning of new problems. When a man is poor, thrift and hard work may be considered as two of the highest virtues. When a man becomes richer his value may be judged by the way he utilizes his wealth and shares its benefits with others. What is important for us now is to utilize our economic potential for constructive purposes, both at home and overseas. One such measure is to open up our domestic market, which has a total purchasing power of over 200 billion dollars, for the manufactured products of developed and developing countries. The growing shortage of labor and rising wage costs provide natural incentives for replacing domestic products with imported manufactured goods. This is also necessary to prevent price inflation at home which could arise due to higher domestic production costs. Another possibility is to share our experiences in industrial growth and export promotion with developing countries. There is an old Chinese proverb which says, “If you give a man a fish, he can eat fish one time, but if you teach him to catch fish he can eat fish all his life.” Probably the most important contribution Japan can make is to transfer effectively technology for production, management and marketing to developing countries, through the activities of private business and through official development assistance. 

There is also the possibility of encouraging development of heavy industries—such as iron and steel—and petrochemical, paper and pulp industries in developing countries. Japan is already overloaded with these industries and there is growing resistance at home to future expansion of such. GNP per acre in Japan is already more than five times that of the United States. There may be some danger that we will be criticized for exporting pollution if we encourage foreign countries to build such industries. However for the developing countries the most serious issues are insufficient employment opportunities and low national income and production levels due to the lack of industries. Thus, the growth and development of industries in the developing countries of Asia should be much more complementary to Japan in the future. 

With these thoughts in mind I would very much like to continue my work for promotion of better understanding in Japan and other Asian countries, of the basic problems of development, of the need for closer cooperation among Asian countries and of the eventual goal—attaining prosperity in Asia as a crucial element of world peace and progress.

Few problems are as critical for the developing world as the flood of rural migrants to the cities. Such rapid urbanization often creates mushrooming slums of squatter shacks. Their poorly skilled inhabitants swell the number of unemployed, threatened with the disillusion of their dreams of benefiting from industrialization.

Djakarta, where the population over the past 30 years has grown from 600,000 to nearly five million, was no exception. Neglected for the first 18 years after it was wrested from Dutch control in 1948 by leaders more interested in status monuments than sewerage and garbage disposal, this largest city in Southeast Asia had become almost unmanageable. Potholed streets, chaotic and inadequate public transport and water and power shortages combined to menace health and foster a feeling of decay, both economic and human.

When ALI SADIKIN, who had risen through the Marine Corps to command the Navy, was appointed Governor in early 1966, prospects for salvaging the capital were further clouded by a national financial malaise. Centralizing and streamlining administration with his directive of 22 June 1966, the new Governor set about learning to know the city entrusted to his care. Riding the ramshackle, overcrowded buses, wandering through unsanitary markets and exploring the slums, he gained a grasp of the people’s physical difficulties and hunger for hope. President Suharto, aware of the magnitude of the task, strengthened the Governor’s hand by naming him in 1967 the “single authority” in administration of the Djakarta Special Capital City Region.

Governor SADIKIN has augmented city revenue by vigorous tax collection, persuasive pleading for funds from the national government and municipal control of gambling—which yields nearly one-fifth of the Region’s income and no longer is a major cause of corruption. Only 43 percent of an annual budget equivalent to roughly US$30 million is being used for routine expenditures; the balance is used for public improvements. Upon completion of a three-year plan of energetic rehabilitation, the City Council in April 1969 launched Repelita, its current five-year development program. Accomplishments include upgrading of important roads, sereets and sidewalks, construction of bridges, overpasses, bus stops and terminals, police outposts, a cultural center, a recreation center and a legislative building. Transport vehicles were repaired and new buses procured, parks and villages cleaned and the city zoo relocated and enlarged. In the first plan 162 schools were built; another 50 followed toward a target of 345. To new health centers have been added three hospitals— for west, south and east Djakarta. Improvement of water supply, sewage systems and streets, traffic control and rejuvenation of markets continues, together with building new city-owned shopping complexes.

In an urban area whose residents increase by 200,000 annually, unpopular measures have been necessary such as curbing the influx of migrants without jobs or housing. Yet, as Djakarta burgeons within relatively systematic planning— on the 444th anniversary of its founding as a princely capital in North Java— it bespeaks the spirit of the new Indonesia. Its Governor, born in West Java 44 years ago, has given the citizenry confidence that when their latent energy is mobilized for positive ends they can effectively help themselves.

In electing Lieutenant General ALI SADIKIN to receive the 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Governmene Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his innovation, foresight and compassion in design and management of a modern administration giving residents of Indonesia’s capital a sense of increased well-being in a finer community.

It is indeed an honor to be in the presence of this very distinguished group.

As a professional soldier, never did I dream, much less expect, that I would be a recipient of an award strange to my profession. It is, therefore, with a feeling of humility that I express my most profound gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation in general, and to the members of the Board of Trustees in particular, for having been granted the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

I recall that I was none too happy when, on the 28th of April 1966, I was appointed Governor of the City of Djakarta. I was aware that the task entrusted to me was one which was completely foreign to my background and experience. I embarked upon the task as the community was going through a transitional period, infected with mutual distrust.

Under these circumstances it became my obsession, in exercising the multifarious duties of Regional Chief Administrator, to place public interests over and above group or personal interests.

I found, in the first few weeks of my administration, a city replete with confusion and not properly managed. Social welfare programs were nonexistent. Population growth proceeded at a high rate and the community was heterogeneous—technically and socioeconomically. The administration system and apparatus was an instrument of the spoils system, peculiar to the political condition and atmosphere at that time. The political-psychological climate was highly unfavorable due to the deteriorating confidence of the people in the city administration.

Such a situation required a pledge on my part to provide leadership dedicated to the restoration of the people’s confidence in the administration. A leadership that could attend meticulously and properly to the needs of the community. A leadership that could take positive decisions, timely and accurately, and furnish adequate and effective measures to cope with any contingency. A leadership based, to a large extent, on humanitarian principles and respect for individual rights regardless of social status, political conviction or religious affiliation. A leadership able to formulate pragmatic political policies aimed at minimizing ideological controversies which, as history taught us, hampers national progress and more often than not, leads to disaster.

As I started the administration of the city, I found out that charisma alone is not enough leadership-quality to surmount the enumerable problems of the city.

There were calculated risks I had to take and I had to neutralize challenges to my program of public order and improvements. At the same time, I had an open mind on constructive criticism and an open heart to chose that wished me well. It was indeed difficult and crying to introduce new ideas, especially to a community reluctant to accept a change because of its culture, background and exposure.

I had imposed upon myself, as Governor of the City of Djakarta, the dual role of administrator and community leader. The accomplishment, modest as it might be, of the mission to “modernize and develop” the city was a direct result of combining the two basic functions.

As in any city in the world, the maintenance of peace and order is a requisite to progress. There were times when, in the discharge of this responsibility, I had to risk personal popularity because I stepped on many political toes. It was and still is my determined aim to be firm of purpose and free from vacillation and timidity insofar as political interference is concerned on matters inherent to the tranquility of the city.

Please allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to add with all sincerity that the achievements during the last five years, judging by the needs of the people, are yet far from satisfactory. We feel that we are still lagging 10 to 15 years behind other neighboring metropolises on infrastructure and development. But we will try to catch up, in our own Malayan way.

Whatever success we have so far achieved, we have done so, firstly, on the basis of the attitude we have adopted and the management policies we have pursued which could very well be the guidelines of my successors; and secondly, on the basis of the people’s renewed faith and confidence in the administration and leadership of his Excellency, President Suharto.

Again, let me thank you for your indulgence.

May God Almighty shower blessings upon all of us today and henceforth.