Cancer is on the rise in India. Especially rampant are cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and lungs in men”all related to tobacco use” and cancers of the breast and cervix in women. Fully 20 percent of cervical cancer in the world occurs in India, where poor rural women are particularly prone. Despite this, specialized research and treatment of these cancers in India are relatively recent phenomena. Dr. V. SHANTA, executive chair of Chennai’s Cancer Institute (WIA), is a pioneer in both.

V. SHANTA was born to an illustrious family and raised in a world of books, ideas, and high achievement. Resisting the conventional path for women, she studied medicine at Madras Medical College and came under the spell of Muthulakshmi Reddy, a social reformer and India’s first woman medical graduate. In 1954, under Dr. Reddy’s leadership, the Women’s Indian Association Cancer Relief Fund founded the Cancer Institute (WIA) in Madras, now Chennai. Drawn to Reddy’s vision, young Dr. SHANTA spurned a more lucrative post to join the Institute. She has never left.

The fledgling institute had only twelve beds and two doctors — SHANTA herself and Dr. S. Krishnamurthi, the founding director and Reddy’s son. As the Institute’s associate director, Shanta set up India’s first comprehensive pediatric cancer clinic, conducted the country’s first major cancer survey, and developed its first program for the early detection of cancer in rural areas. She became a passionate advocate of cancer prevention and opened a tobacco cessation clinic. And she conducted India’s first successful trials of combination therapy, leading to a dramatic breakthrough in the control and cure of oral cancer.

Simultaneously, SHANTA conducted groundbreaking research on oral, cervical, and breast cancer and pediatric leukemia, publishing the results in international journals and establishing the Institute as India’s first Regional Cancer Research and Treatment Center in 1975. In 1984, the Institute added a postgraduate college where Shanta proceeded to train cancer specialists, more than 150 of whom now practice throughout the subcontinent.

As director from 1980, SHANTA strove to make the Institute a world-class research center with institutional partners in Europe, North America, and Japan and state-of-the-art laboratory and imaging equipment. She worked tirelessly to raise donations, grants, and government subsidies and trained hundreds of village-health nurses to screen rural women for cervical abnormalities. In 2000, she opened India’s first hereditary cancer clinic.

Today, the Cancer Institute (WIA) comprises a 428-bed hospital and research center plus the Dr. Muthulakshmi College of Oncologic Sciences, with advanced specialties in medical, surgical, and radiation oncology. In an era when specialized medical care in India has become highly commercialized, Dr. SHANTA strives to ensure that the Institute remains true to its ethos, “Service to all.” Its services are free or subsidized for some 60 percent of its 100,000 annual patients; travel allowances make regular treatments accessible to the poor. And through a volunteer program called Sanctuary, the Institute provides hope-giving emotional support and counseling to patients and their families and to cancer-afflicted children. There are thousands who might say, as leukemia victim Delli Rao, a wageworker, has said, “I owe my life to Dr. SHANTA.”

Seventy-eight-year-old SHANTA still sees patients, still performs surgery, and is still on call twenty-four hours a day. It disturbs her that it is so hard to raise funds for the Institute when, she says, “we seem to have enough money to construct pilgrim shelters and temples in almost every street of the city.” Even so, she cautions young people against cynicism. Perhaps reflecting on her own life, she tells them: “Learn to accept that you are good and that from you a lot of good can happen.”

In electing V. SHANTA to receive the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes her leadership of Chennai’s Cancer Institute (WIA) as a center of excellence and compassion for the study and treatment of cancer in India.

The honorable Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow awardees, brothers and sisters of the Philippines.

It was late evening on July 5th when my phone rang and a colleague handed me the hand phone, “call from the Philippine,” he said. I had been to Manila earlier, the last time in 2001, as the outgoing President of the Asia-Pacific Federation of Organizations for Cancer Control. I took the call, wondering as to who in the Philippine Cancer Society it could be! Imagine my total bewilderment when the caller identified herself as “Madam Carmencita Abella, President of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation” and congratulated me on being chosen for this world-famous award for 2005. I could only keep on repeating, “I am honored, I am privileged!” She told me that the information was confidential, but I could not help sharing it immediately with Dr. Krishnamurthi, my old-time colleague. His immediate reaction was “Wonderful! It will greatly strengthen our cause; it will help us raise more funds.”

His reaction was typical of the Cancer Institute’s ethos from its very inception, fifty-one years ago. We have never regarded ourselves as individuals, only as members of a mission of service, transcending geography, race and religion. Honors, successes and failures concern us only to the extent that they are likely to affect our mission.

The Cancer Institute, in our perception, is not confined to the four walls of a building or a few acres of land. It reaches out to wherever a cancer patient or family needs our help.

Our greatest reward is to bring a smile on the face of suffering, cure where possible, relief always. To us, the award is far more than a personal distinction. Its spiritual value and moral strength exceed all else.

God bless you all.

Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. Tranquility & peace unto all beings.

In South Korea these days, prosperity and democratization are advancing hand in hand. But this has not always been so. For decades after the cruel war that divided North from South, authoritarian governments prevailed in South Korea, even as the economy began its remarkable takeoff. In 1987 a democracy movement opened new space for citizens, who responded with a proliferation of civic-oriented, politically engaged nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. But as YOON HYE-RAN discovered when she left her hometown of Cheonan in 1986 to attend university in Seoul, this positive trend was uneven. Provincial cities like hers were lagging behind. She determined to return home and make a difference.

YOON’s student years at Yonsei University coincided with Korea’s democracy movement and an upsurge of political and social activism. Not an activist herself, she nevertheless embraced the spirit of the times. When her fifteen-year-old sister was expelled from high school and was suddenly adrift, Yoon learned just how poorly equipped Cheonan was to assist young people at risk. YOON was familiar with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and its many services for youth. Garnering support from Cheonan’s growing cadre of civic-minded professionals and from the master chapter in Seoul, she established the YMCA in Cheonan and became its manager and driving force.

YOON led Cheonan’s new “Y” to provide social and recreational facilities and other positive outlets for young people such as concerts, study groups, and clubs. She quickly discerned that it was not only youths in Cheonan who lacked social services but also other groups that are culturally marginalized in Korea: the elderly, the disabled, the poor, and the mentally handicapped. Passing leadership of the YMCA to a trusted successor, Yoon founded Citizens Opening the World for Welfare, or COWW, in 1998 to improve social welfare in Cheonan for these vulnerable sectors.

At COWW, YOON steered services to “the lonely elderly” and established the Association for Cheonan Elderly. She launched the Citizens Alliance for a Walkable Cheonan to campaign for everyone’s right to move about the city safely, including the disabled. She led in founding the Cheonan Parents Association for Handicapped Children and similar NGOs for disabled women, mentally handicapped citizens, and poor children. YOON’s innovative approach was to incubate these groups as independent community NGOs rather than to expand COWW. In each case, she articulated a need, formed an organization, identified and trained potential leaders, and then mentored the organization to maturity and financial stability before spinning it off.

As she did so, YOON also built a network of professionals and NGO leaders to press for public-sector reforms and formed the Cheonan Ombudsman Group to monitor the city’s social services. In advance of local elections in 2002, she organized a citizens’ group to develop a welfare-policy agenda and mounted a public forum where candidates for mayor were pressed to respond. More than one thousand citizens attended the forum and the winning candidate subsequently pledged to honor six of the group’s recommendations, including a city mental-health center and new funds for disabled children.

YOON is a calm but passionate worker. Today, Cheonan is enlivened by the different civic organizations she has incubated and by concrete manifestations of their good work — such as after-school programs for poor children and a new Center for the Elderly. At her urging, the city’s fledgling NGOs not only provide needed social services but also shape local policies. Groups do not have to be large to be effective agents of change, says thirty-seven-year-old YOON; her own is not. Indeed, YOON’s dream for Cheonan is of a city energized by the actions of “many small, healthy organizations.”

In electing YOON HYE-RAN to receive the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes her catalytic role in enabling Cheonan’s civil society to exercise its social responsibilities dynamically and democratically.

The Honorable Chief Justice Hilario Davide, trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow awardees ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

First of all, I would like to thank deeply each and everyone at the Foundation and those who have supported me to this day.

When I first heard the news, I was more surprised than happy. Considering the Ramon Magsaysay Award’s international reputation and especially the achievements of previous awardees for the good of our society, I could not believe that I was selected to be this year’s awardee. When looking into the previous Korean awardees, from Chun-ha Chang to the most recent awardee, Pomnyun Sunim, every awardee has been a person I respect highly; I did not even dream about following their ways.

Also, knowing that I am being awarded in “Emergent Leadership,” I feel very responsible and obliged because I am being awarded for expected future achievements aside from what I have actually achieved so far.

However, I want to share the meaning and happiness of this award with all the activists who strive for the expansion and deepening of civil society, especially those who, regardless of social recognition, devote their lives to transforming their local communities through various grassroots movements.

Recently, the Korean civil movement has been recognized for its noticeable growth and dynamism. Also, the great influence that our civil movement has had on creating an institutional framework for democracy in Korea is a fact that cannot be denied.

Even so, there are some criticisms we receive, such as that our “civil movement is without citizen” and that our “civil movement is based on specialists and well-known people.” Admittedly, the foundations of civil society in Korea are still weak, thus it is still hard to gain wide support and participation from our citizens. From now on, for our society to mature and become truly based on citizens’ participation and civil responsibility, I think it is urgent that we mobilize citizens’ commitment to, and active participation in, the issues confronting their local communities. For this to happen, local community-based grassroots organizations have to play more and more significant roles.

At this point in time, I would like to praise the Foundation for giving meaning to grassroots activities in Cheonan, a small city in Korea, and recognizing them as an important driving force that will change our society.

I started doing social work in my early 20s, and have now spent fifteen years interacting with my local community. I rejoice over how people have changed through all this work. Images of hard times, happy moments, and those who have been with me flash through my mind. I have worked hard to make change in the local community, but I think the one thing that has really changed is myself. An inexperienced and young woman from fifteen years ago has grown up to become — although it still sounds awkward for me to say this — a leader of the coming younger generation. After all, young people learn to take responsibility for themselves and others, to take care of and have a sense of solidarity with others, through various volunteer activities. They also learn to devote and sacrifice themselves for the socially disadvantaged. I believe that this is the true process of building civil society leadership.

When looking through my own experiences, I see that the charm of small grassroots activities is in the many possibilities these create to develop the leadership of everyone who participates in making the activities holistic and substantial. In my own case, I came to realize — through my experiences, not in theory — how a democratic citizenry is cultivated through grassroots organizations and their activities. Although it is a slow process, this is the fundamental power needed to transform society.

I could not be standing where I am right now without the guidance and care of many people. I want to thank my family who have shared my life burdens with me and encouraged me with all their hearts. Especially, I would like to give my love and thanks to my husband, Won Geun Lee, whom I met as a co-worker in my community activities fifteen years ago, and who has become my life companion, my work adviser and honest critic. I am also thankful to my lovely son, Hyun Shik, who always had to share his mother with others, but was always understanding and caring.

Each and every one who was with me — sometimes even compromising themselves in seeking justice and the common good — deserves this award. Most of all, everyone in Cheonan city knows that this award should go to Sung Ho Park, who has shared the same vision, was never reluctant to be humble himself in order to help others, and who has been a true mentor in my life.

Lastly, I would like to give this honor to the Lord who has “made me the way I am,” and I ask all of you to pray for me to become an instrument that is used according to God’s will. Once again, thank you so much.

Few crimes are so vicious as acid throwing. When flung upon the face, common acids used by jewelers and in battery shops and tanneries melt the skin and eat into the bone and eyes, leaving victims permanently disfigured. A life of ostracism and shame awaits them. In Bangladesh, some three hundred people each year lose their natural-born faces in such attacks. Most of them are young women who have offended their attackers by denying them sex or marriage or suitable dowries. But others are maimed in family feuds or land disputes or local rivalries. This hideous crime is new to Bangladesh and has grown alarmingly in the past decade. As editor of Bangladesh’s largest-circulation Bangla-language newspaper, MATIUR RAHMAN has stirred the nation to respond. 

RAHMAN was born in 1944 and grew up in the era of decolonization and fervent nationalism that gave birth to East Pakistan and then Bangladesh. He became a Marxist and, for twenty-one years, edited Dhaka’s socialist weekly Ekota. When communism’s failures gave him second thoughts, he withdrew from leftist politics to concentrate on journalism. In 1998 he founded Prothom Alo, or First Light, a daily newspaper. Rahman established Prothom Alo‘s credibility by exposing the missteps of both the government and its foes, and by aggressively covering corruption, terrorism, and human rights violations. The newspaper’s constructive advocacy and RAHMAN’s own unsparing editorials attracted legions of readers. Today it reaches two million of them. 

Prothom Alo naturally covered the alarming rise of acid throwing in Bangladesh. But in 2000 a heartrending case involving a fifteen-year-old girl riveted RAHMAN’s attention. He determined to harness the resources of his newspaper to fight the scourge. 

In prominent daily appeals, RAHMAN declared war on acid throwers and called upon his readers to contribute to the Prothom Alo Aid Fund for acid victims. With scarred women at his side, he solicited donations at rallies and press conferences and called upon celebrities and volunteers to carry the appeal throughout the country. People from all walks of life and even Bangladeshis abroad became donors. RAHMAN acknowledged each small gift in the newspaper and steered help directly to the victims: money for burn treatments, plastic surgery, legal fees, and living expenses, plus new dwellings for some and income-generating assets such as milking cows, sewing machines, cultivable lands, and shops for others. At the same time, Prothom Alo pressured the government to strengthen laws against acid attacks and the reckless sale of dangerous chemicals. 

The response to RAHMAN’s appeal reassured him that “the society is not sleeping.” By June 2005, some 8.2 million taka had been coursed to over one hundred victims. Moreover, in 2002 the country’s Acid Crimes Prevention Act and Acid Control Act stiffened penalties for acid throwers and tightened licensing requirements for acid sales. 

RAHMAN has been described as “the navigator of positive social and cultural change” in Bangladesh. He has used his authority as editor of Prothom Alo not only to fight the crime of acid throwing but also to raise public consciousness about HIV/AIDS and drug abuse, and to reveal the role of certain Muslim extremists in fomenting militancy and violence. His provocative independence comes at a price. He is regularly harassed and threatened, and the government itself has withdrawn advertising from his newspaper and taken him to court in reprisal for Prothom Alo‘s critical reporting. 

Despite these pressures, RAHMAN aspires to no other vocation. Readers look to Prothom Alo as “a hope against hope,” he says. “I work to use it for the cause of the people.”

In electing MATIUR RAHMAN to receive the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the board of trustees recognizes his wielding the power of the press to crusade against acid throwing and to stir Bangladeshis to help its many victims.

This auspicious ceremony will remain as one of the most joyous moments in my life and in the life of those who helped to build the daily Prothom Alo. We are grateful to the Roman Magsaysay Award Foundation for honoring the paper and myself with such a prestigious award. 

The world of mass media today is in turmoil. The post World War II intellectual edifice of international laws, norms and practices are today under serious challenge as the bipolar world learns to deal with one super power in the international scene. The war on terror and the traditional values of liberalism and open society, on which the Western media flourished for so long, are on an apparent collision course. There are clear signs of erosion on the fundamental values of individual freedom and national independence under the pressure to ensure national security, both real and imaginary. 

In the developing world new social and economic challenges, the ever-increasing burden of poverty and the marginalization of the poor have brought the media into deeper questions about their relevance and purpose. Rising corruption, the nexus between politics and crime, disregard for the law by the rich and the powerful and the clear danger of social outburst caused by neglect and continued discrimination have revealed, as never before, the possible constructive role that an independent and socially committed media can play. 

It is within these changing times and demands that the role of Prothom Alo has to be judged. From the very outset we were fully aware that Bangladesh needed a more independent media voice than was so far available. The country needed a newspaper that was bolder in its articulation of the problems that faced us, and more imaginative in its thinking as to how to solve them. Encompassing it all, we needed a more socially responsible newspaper that combined the core value of press freedom with the goal of democracy and people’s prosperity. 

Thus was Prothom Alo born, and thus has grown its relevance, credibility and popularity. “People” are at the center of our journalism. We never forget for a moment that they are our strength, and it is for them that we exist. Hence, all our energies are devoted to making the paper closer to the needs of the masses. 

We do not dwell on dreams alone; we lend a helping hand to the people, we stand by them in solving their day-to-day problems. 

Following are examples of some of the initiatives we took. 

1. For the scholastic development of children, Prothom Alo helped the national committee for the Mathematics Olympiad in raising funds and in organizing regional and national Mathematics Olympiad competitions across the country for the last three years. A total of fifteen thousand students have participated in 2004-2005. For the first time, a team from Bangladesh participated in the World Mathematics Olympiad in Mexico. 

2. We started a campaign to increase sensitivity towards the Bangla language and culture by initiating language competitions at the regional and national levels. Four thousand students from 333 schools participated in this program.Besides this, we regularly help young students to organize debates all over the country. 

3. During the terrible flood last year, a cross section of people deposited in cash and in kind aid for flood victims that amounted to US$166,700. We distributed food and clothing in 44 districts. When the floodwaters receded, we, as part of our rehabilitation effort, distributed bamboo, wood, and seeds and fertilizer for farming, as well as chairs, tables and other amenities for schools; doctors were sent and medicines were distributed. 

4. We helped Tipu Sultan, a journalist severely injured by the political cadres, in association with The Daily Star, by raising the money needed for his treatment. 

5. By raising funds we have also extended our help to children and young students affected by cancer and other pernicious diseases. 

It is these positive, constructive and timely interventions that have made Prothom Alo a symbol of hope to our people. 

In accepting the honor that you have bestowed upon us, we promise to commit ourselves further to serve our people to gain greater freedom and prosperity. We will strive to expand our social commitment and take up newer roles in the area of human rights and economic development. 

I would like to declare that one-third of the award money will go to the Prothom Alo Aid Fund for acid victims, one-third will be deposited to the anti-drug and HIV awareness campaign, and the rest will be used to create a new fund for deceased and injured journalists who are victims of political persecution. 

The Ramon Magsaysay Award will certainly inspire all who are a part of Prothom Alo. We will continue our work for the transformation of society. Our main ethos is: “Wherever there is good, Prothom Alo is with it.” We will remain true to this goal.

The small landlocked nation of Laos is one of the world’s poorest. Not so long ago, wars and revolution drained away many of its educated people. Even now, thirty years after the establishment of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 1975, infrastructure, industry, and public services remain rudimentary. More than half of the country’s population is under twenty. For these three million young people there are few opportunities. Social problems are on the rise and many look for better lives abroad. Yet these young people are the country’s best hope, says SOMBATH SOMPHONE. As executive director of the Participatory Development Training Centre (PADETC) in Vientiane, he is preparing them to build a better future for Laos.

SOMBATH SOMPHONE’s early life took place amidst uncertainty and turbulence as Laos was swept into the Indochina War. He eventually escaped this by winning a scholarship to the University of Hawaii, where he earned degrees in education and agriculture. By 1980, he was home again. That same year Sombath helped launch the Rice-Based Integrated Farm System Project, to help Laotian farmers achieve food security. The ensuing years exposed him intimately to the world of rural Laos and to the complex obstacles awaiting development workers in its remote scattered villages.

Drawing on these lessons, SOMBATH founded PADETC in 1996 to foster sustainable, equitable, and self-reliant development in Laos. Up till now it is the only officially recognized organization of its kind in the country. SOMBATH has led it to emphasize eco-friendly technologies and micro-enterprises and to enhance education-by introducing fuel-efficient stoves that spare women hours of daily labor collecting wood; by promoting locally produced organic fertilizer as an alternative to imported chemical fertilizers; by devising new processing techniques and marketing strategies for small businesses such as organic mulberry tea and brown rice and sun-dried bananas, pineapples, and berries; by initiating garbage recycling in the capital city; and by organizing stimulating extracurricular programs for the youth. Today, PADETC is designing new child-centered lesson plans for primary schools.

Although SOMBATH heads a full-time staff of forty-three, much of this work is carried out by teams of young volunteers and trainees who exemplify his commitment to participatory learning. In any given week, these volunteers-cum-trainees reach as many as nine thousand people. As they do so, SOMBATH makes certain that they are also learning to think, plan, act, and lead.

PADETC’s high-school-aged “weekend volunteers,” for example, lead grade-schoolers in content-rich games and learning activities and write children’s books and plays; at the same time, the Centre mentors them in leadership, teamwork, and gender awareness, and coaches them in writing, speaking, and teaching. PADETC’s university-level volunteers, called Green Ants, promote organic foods, recycling, and environmental awareness and are taught to conduct surveys, write reports, and to plan and manage projects. The Centre’s post-graduate trainees conduct fieldwork in drug abuse prevention, human trafficking, HIV awareness, and micro-enterprises, and gain practical hands-on experience at the grassroots. SOMBATH also ensures that PADETC’s young volunteers become media savvy. They learn to use colorful story boards to reach children with lessons on hygiene, life skills, and caring for nature; to write and broadcast youth-oriented radio shows; and to produce effective videos on good farming practices and urgent social issues.

Fifty-four-year-old SOMBATH presides unobtrusively yet restlessly over PADETC’s many projects. His hopes rest with the young. He urges them to remain mindful of their country’s traditional values even as global forces grow stronger. Development is good, he assures them, but for development to be healthy, it “must come from within.”

In electing SOMBATH SOMPHONE to receive the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his hopeful efforts to promote sustainable development in Laos by training and motivating its young people to become a generation of leaders.

The honorable Chief Justice Hilario Davide, trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow awardees, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

It is a great honor for me today to be here receiving the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, and I would like to sincerely thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation and its board of judges for conferring on me this important award.

This award is not just for me or for my staff in PADETC. This award is also for our young Lao volunteers and youth leaders, who have demonstrated to us, the adults, that they have the capacity, and indeed the right, to claim the space to determine their own and their community’s development pathway. I believe that it is their passion and their hopes and dreams for a better future which are recognized and celebrated through this prestigious award today.

For me and my organization, PADETC, this award is a major encouragement and validation that there are critical roles in the development of Lao society for indigenous civil-society action groups like ours. I hope the award will further give confidence to other Lao-led organizations to develop and thrive.

What I have accomplished so far is only a small beginning. To have long-term impact, we will need more coherent and comprehensive development approaches that place human dignity and economic and social justice for all at the center of development. To achieve this, it cannot be just the work of a few organizations or a few committed individuals; it should be a sustained movement that involves everybody: the government, the private sector, and people from all walks of life and from all age groups, and especially our young who comprise more than half of our population.

Measured in terms of Gross National Product or GNP, Laos is poor and we are constantly reminded of this by mainstream development specialists. Laos may be cash-poor, but we are wealthy in many other ways. We have a rich tradition and a wealth of indigenous knowledge and local experience; our communities are known for their strong sense of social solidarity and cohesion. And we have a vibrant and young population who are still relatively unspoiled by mindless consumerism and commercialization. We should turn these attributes into our development capital and not trade away our precious heritage by adopting development models which emphasize economic growth but jeopardize social and environmental sustainability. We have to chart our own development pathway and balance our development strategies to strengthen self-reliance and avoid the mistakes that mire so many developing societies in debt, social disintegration, disease, and environmental degradation.

PADETC’s approach to development has always been to balance the development lessons from outside Laos with our local experiences and knowledge. We seek such a balance through broad-based consultation and the involvement of young people at the forefront of the development movement. These measures have worked and we have gained increasing support. We believe that through our own efforts and with the support of our well-wishers, we can build a socially, economically and environmentally balanced society which ensures stable livelihoods for all, and for future generations.

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corruption is a blight on many nations. But there are few nations where corruption is so deeply entrenched and habitual as in Indonesia. Years of venal dictatorship made it so. Under President Suharto, an elaborate patronage system channeled much of the nation’s wealth to its power holders. By paying bribes to certain members of the ruling circle and to military men, officials, judges, and police, Indonesians learned that just about anything “could be arranged.” This culture of corruption has flourished anew in Indonesia’s post-Suharto era of reform and democratization. As coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), TETEN MASDUKI knows the degree to which, in Indonesia today, corruption is a fact of life. But he wants Indonesians to know that corruption need not be their country’s way of life.

Born into a family of farmers in 1963, TETEN studied chemistry in college and became a high school teacher. In 1985, he joined a demonstration by local farmers whose land had been stolen. After that, he says, “I plunged into the activist world.” By 1990, he had joined the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia or LBHI). As head of its labor rights section, TETEN came face-to-face with Indonesia’s huge “corruption tax.” Thirty percent of manufacturers’ operating expenses went to pay off officials, far less to workers’ wages. In 1998, TETEN volunteered to head Indonesia Corruption Watch, a new LBHI program, and two years later established it as an independent organization.

Under TETEN, ICW became a public clearinghouse for information about corruption, collusion, and nepotism. It solicited reports from the public, investigated them, publicized them, and passed them on to the authorities for action. The press became TETEN’s ally in campaigning for public integrity and exposing flagrant irregularities: the attorney-general who received large anomalous bank deposits; the provincial governor who pocketed a US$20 million markup for a local power plant; the military procurers who charged Indonesia US $2.5 million for a tank that Thailand bought for US$1 million; the officials who paid themselves some US $4 million for a nonexistent river-dredging project; and countless other irregularities in projects of the World Bank, the state oil company, the national airline, the tsunami relief agency, plus sundry ministries, courts, banks, utility companies, and local governments. In 2004, ICW examined 432 such cases causing an estimated loss to Indonesia of some US$580 million.

Corruption on this scale, says TETEN, “generates poverty, environmental destruction, uncertainty of law, and bad public services.” It also threatens Indonesia’s burgeoning democracy. During last year’s parliamentary election, TETEN launched the National Movement for Not Electing Rotten Politicians, and lately he has been raising the alarm about vote buying and other forms of “money politics.”

Teten and his ICW staff of fifteen are assisted by a team of loyal volunteer accountants, lawyers, and economists, and a network of regional partner organizations. He practices transparency and has made his own income public. The work is dangerous. Threats to TETEN’s life are not idle: Munir, a fellow activist and ICW Ethics Board member, was murdered last year.

TETEN confesses frustration at how few of Indonesia’s corrupt leaders have been prosecuted and convicted. The problem, he says, is that the country’s political and business elites are linked by patronage and unchecked by the law. They act with impunity. Even so, TETEN says, “I don’t agree with the idea that corruption rules our culture.” He dreams of a more democratic Indonesia where empowered citizens will insist upon honest government and “clean up the political elite.” This will take stamina and lots of time, he says, adding hopefully: “I think my children and grandchildren will perhaps benefit from our work.”

In electing TETEN MASDUKI to receive the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes his challenging Indonesians to expose corruption and claim their right to clean government.

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for giving me such an honorable award. It is truly far beyond my imagination. Actually, I believe that what I have done so far deserves no immense appreciation. It is by no means extraordinary. I am just an ordinary man who cannot bear to keep my silence when people around me suffer because of severe abuses of power within our government.

Corruption is so rampant in our country. It has become a part of our lives. A lot of my countrymen and women don’t realize that they live in a country rich in resources, but most of us live in poverty. This is because of corruption. The people are the victims. However, experience has taught me that people care more about their own personal gains, rather than our collective interest as a nation.

After President Suharto stepped down, we at the ICW started our endeavor to empower the people to fight against corruption. We simply provided the initiative. We began by receiving complaints against corrupt practices. We then used the media to expose these practices and forwarded the reports to legal offices.

Right from the start, I realized this is a heavy task. We had to institutionalize this movement to establish a strong foundation to combat corruption. People often think that our worst enemy is the big corruptors. But I think my worst enemy is myself. I often feel that I haven’t achieved enough. Sometimes, this makes me very frustrated. When this happens, I amuse myself with a Javanese philosophy on luck, which in my own version says: “Perhaps not many corruptors have been convicted and sent to prison, but as long as I am not the one who goes to prison, I’m still lucky.”

It is very fulfilling for me to see that the small seed we sowed has started to grow. Anti-corruption movements have recently spread throughout our country, even to small sub-districts. This reinforces my belief that anti-corruption has to be no less than a primary agenda for our whole nation.

Personally, therefore, this award is very significant for me. It will be one source of my strength, where I anchor my hope for a better future. It will drive me to work harder and more wisely. More importantly, it serves as a valuable symbol for the Indonesian people at large to be courageous in fighting against abuses of power.

On this very special occasion, I would like to also thank my family, friends and colleagues, donor organizations, as well as journalists. They have given us enormous support. Their trust opens a wider path for me in doing my work.

Once again, I thank all of you and the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation. Last but not least, I sincerely hope justice will prevail against the unjust.

Thank you and mabuhay.