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.

For decades after Cambodia gained independence in 1953, the country was ravaged by foreign aggression and chronic civil war. The violence of war impoverished the population and exacted a terrible toll in human lives. It also destroyed and threatened the survival of the nation’s unique cultural and spiritual resource—its ancient shrines and monuments. The most renowned case was that of Angkor Wat, a 162.6-hectare temple complex that is the world’s largest religious monument, dating back to the 12th century, a symbol of Cambodian identity and a true world treasure. Unprotected and unpreserved because of the war, Angkor stood gravely endangered.

One Japanese scholar devoted fifty years of his life to help assure that Angkor Wat survives and remains a living monument for Cambodians. YOSHIAKI ISHIZAWA, an eminent scholar of Southeast Asian history and one-time president of Sophia University in Japan, began his involvement in conservation work when he first visited Angkor as a student in 1961. With the suspension of conservation efforts due to the fighting, nothing much could be done until the Khmer Rouge went out of power in 1979. War had decimated the pool of Cambodian conservationists, and ISHIZAWA, responding to urgent appeals, led an effort in Japan and Cambodia to save Angkor Wat.

Starting in 1980, ISHIZAWA worked side by side with Cambodians, networked with international experts and organizations, campaigned in the Japanese media to generate awareness and support, and devised programs for Angkor’s protection and conservation. These activities led to the launching in 1989 of the Sophia University Angkor International Mission, later known simply as the Sophia Mission, which under ISHIZAWA’s leadership, conducted research, training, and conservation work. Leading the Mission and collaborating with both Cambodian agencies and intergovernmental bodies, ISHIZAWA has been at the center of activities which also include technical studies, public heritage education, and restoration work, all aimed at the sustainable development of Angkor.

In its archaeological and preservation work, the Mission restored the Buddhist temple Banteay Kdei, excavated 274 statues of Buddha in 2001, and in 2007 completed major repairs on the western causeway that provides key access to Angkor Wat. But what has made ISHIZAWA’s work quite singular is his culturally-sensitive and long-term approach to the problem. A historian steeped in Khmer epigraphy and early Cambodian history, he does not favor quick, aggressive engineering interventions but views Angkor’s conservation as integral to the rebuilding of Cambodian culture itself. Hence, he has put the premium on appropriate technology, bringing Japanese stone masons to work with Cambodians so they can learn from each other. He has painstakingly trained Cambodians and supported them for studies in Japan; to date, eighteen Cambodian scholars have earned conservation-related graduate and postgraduate degrees in Sophia University. ISHIZAWA believes that Cambodians need to discover and create their own specific cultural preservation strategies and methods, different from those of foreign origin.

Under his leadership, the Mission has systematically raised awareness among Cambodian school children and villagers to take pride in their heritage and become its protectors and conservators. As part of this effort, the Sophia Mission established the Center for Education on Angkor Cultural Heritage; constructed the Preah Norodom Sihanouk Angkor Museum, and founded the Sophia Asia Center for Research and Human Development in Siem Reap, a training center and hostel for Cambodian and other scholars.

Despite threats to his safety and health, ISHIZAWA has been relentless in building local expertise and commitment to Angkor’s preservation. He quietly but adamantly insists, “The protection and restoration of the sites of Cambodia should be carried out by the Cambodians, for the Cambodians.”

In electing YOSHIAKI ISHIZAWA to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his selfless, steadfast service to the Cambodian people, his inspiring leadership in empowering Cambodians to be proud stewards of their heritage, and his wisdom in reminding us all that cultural monuments like the Angkor Wat are shared treasures whose preservation is thus, also our shared global responsibility.

It is with deep feelings of joy that I stand before you today to receive the world-renowned Ramon Magsaysay Award. I feel elated, humbled, and deeply moved by your kind decision to confer upon me such a magnificent honor.

In all sincerity, I declare that it was not my efforts alone, but rather, the efforts of numerous friends and colleagues as well that have served to earn for me this singular distinction. Hence, on behalf of my staff at the Sophia University Angkor International Mission, I accept this award with profound humility and gratitude.

The founding philosophy of Sophia University is “Men and Women for Others, with Others.” Spurred on by this motto, we have so far sought to diligently pursue our works of service for Cambodia, a nation whose people have undergone acute suffering and sorrow, owing to the civil war and political unrest that began in 1970. The situation in Cambodia was such that it could never be bypassed or ignored. During a period of 24 years, the Cambodians had lost virtually all they had, and every single day for them was marked by anguish and despair.

We of the Sophia Mission have pursued two distinct goals. One is the extending of humanitarian assistance to Cambodia through relief services for refugees, while the other is the revitalization of Cambodian culture through the restoration of Angkor Wat. Our reason for insisting on rescuing Angkor Wat is because this would signify a call to the people to return to the peace that once characterized the Angkor period, as well as a call for them to rebuild their nation once more.

This call of ours echoed far and wide. We even moved a step ahead, because this appeal for the restoration of Angkor Wat was also a plea for reconciliation between ethnic groups, and the revival of the nation’s culture. In fact, these two appeals are linked to the establishment of peace. In our training of human resources, our stress was on the fact that “the preservation and restoration of Cambodian cultural heritage should be carried out by the Cambodians, for the Cambodians.”

A key factor in our development of human resources lies in the fact that in 1996, we purchased land in Cambodia, and later erected over there a training center, namely the Sophia Asia Center for Research and Human Development. This enabled us to move closer to the sites, and it also signified our motivation with regard to the issue. We also launched a program whereby conservators acquired academic degrees. Here, selected individuals entered the Graduate School of Area Studies of Sophia University in order to obtain their required degrees, and, to date, 7 have acquired their doctorates and 11 have acquired their master’s. All of them have now returned to Cambodia, where they serve as senior officials for the government. This program was initiated in 1996, and it still continues.

These, in brief, are some of our modest accomplishments. I express my sincere appreciation to all of you for your unstinted generosity, and thank you from the depths of my heart. May God bless you all.

Burdened by endemic poverty and a weak, corruption-ridden economy, the Philippines took a major shift in the 1990s when it pursued a policy of liberalized, export-led, globally competitive growth. A key component in this shift was the creation the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) to revive the country’s export processing zones, replacing the earlier agency which had failed dismally in boosting export-oriented investments. PEZA was placed under the leadership of a career public servant who, in over twenty-one years, has built the organization into a showcase of successful regulatory reform, a model institution of honest and committed public service, and a key contributor to the nation’s economic growth.

This public servant was LILIA B. DE LIMA. Born in Iriga City, Camarines Sur province, and raised in a family of public servants, her upbringing instilled in her the imperatives of integrity and the ideals of public service. Trained in law, she pursued a career in government, serving in various senior assignments until in 1995, she was asked to serve as PEZA’s first Director-General charged with promoting and regulating foreign investments in the country’s economic zones. Her first challenge was to regain the trust of investors grown skeptical of the country’s institutional capability and political will to spur economic growth. And her performance was ultimately to be measured by how increased investor trust would be converted into actual gainful employment for Filipinos nationwide.

Bucking tremendous pressures and threats, Director-General DE LIMA single-mindedly pursued a program of reform: she determinedly halved the bloated 1,000-person bureaucracy she had inherited from a system of political patronage; she developed PEZA’s work culture into one marked by honesty, efficiency and—quite literally—one-stop, nonstop service. Putting the right systems in place and leading by strict and consistent example, she gradually transformed a failed agency into a model of transparent, productive, and customer-friendly efficiency, one that the World Bank has cited for demonstrating “best practices” in ecozone management worldwide.

Under LILIA DE LIMA’s leadership, PEZA enabled the rise of the Philippines as one of the region’s top investment destinations. Among the radical policies that made this possible were a shift from government-financed to private sector-led ecozone development; streamlined 24/7 PEZA operations to reliably service global locators; investor-friendly regulations, purposeful interagency partnerships, and strengthened relations with local governments in the ecozones. Defying conventional wisdom, she successfully encouraged existing locators to expand operations despite the volatilities of the global economy.

During her term, PEZA’s accomplishments have been nothing short of spectacular. The number of PEZA ecozones increased by 2,000%, from the initial 16 she inherited to 343 by 2016; the number of registered enterprises rose from 331 to 3,756; investments reached PhP 3 trillion; and ecozone exports totaled US$ 629 billion. Also during DE LIMA’s tenure, PEZA remitted to the national treasury PhP 16.6 billion in corporate income taxes and dividends, and paid off the PhP 4.6 billion debt of its predecessor agency. What is most deeply gratifying to DE LIMA, who is acutely aware of the urgency of the problem of joblessness, is that PEZA has generated, in direct and indirect employment, some 6.3 million jobs for Filipinos.

In a world where there is rampant cynicism and real pain about how governments function, examples of public servants like DE LIMA and her PEZA team are especially impressive. And yet, reflecting on her career, she says: “I cannot solve the problems of the world but if in my own little area I can make a difference, then I must make that difference.” For all workers in government, it is a credo to follow.

In electing LILIA B. DE LIMA to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her unstinting, sustained leadership in building a credible and efficient PEZA, proving that the honest, competent and dedicated work of public servants can, indeed, redound to real economic benefits to millions of Filipinos.

I thank the Lord for this significant milestone in my life. Thank you most sincerely, Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation, for recognizing my work at the Philippine Economic Zone Authority or PEZA. Truly, this is a blessing to be awarded for work I enjoyed doing. My 21 years at PEZA was a privilege as it was a commitment. It gave me the opportunity to serve my country and help generate employment for our people. Thanks to the investors, who trusted in our capability to ensure that their operations can be set up at the soonest time and at the least cost undertaken with the PEZA hallmark brand of service—“One-stop shop, non-stop shop, no red tape, and no corruption.”

It wasn’t all a walk in the park. We inherited an extremely bloated bureaucracy. Trimming the fat by 60% was a long, torturous, and emotionally-draining process. It was the most bruising experience in my public career. Everything was thrown at me, but we did not waver and we cleaned up. As we strengthened the organization, we also instituted sweeping structural and policy reforms to remain competitive and address the ever-changing investment climate. All these paid off. PEZA gradually transformed into clean and efficient organization with highly-motivated, hardworking professional individuals. And I hope, I hope, they will continue to be so.

Our mantra from day one is absolute honesty and utmost service in all our dealings with our stakeholders. I am proud to have worked with my PEZAns, and with them I shared this award. I must likewise thank the investors—many of them I see here tonight.

The question most often asked is how I survived 4 presidents of different political persuasions and management styles. My answer is simple: Do your job with integrity and professionalism, and the bottomline will show it. It’s the best credential you can have and the only endorsement you will need.

But tonight, we honor the beloved president Ramon Magsaysay, who believed that a high and unwavering sense of morality should pervade all spears of governmental activity. I am reminded of his words of wisdom that remains as relevant today. And he said, and I quote, “I believe the president should set up the example of a big heart, an honest mind, sound instincts, the virtue of healthy and patience, and an abiding love for the common man. Guns alone are not the answer. We must provide hope for young peoples, for better housing, clothing, and food. And if we do, the radicals will wither away.”

Ramon Magsaysay has given us that heartbeat for humanity. What we have all been awarded for is in rhythm with the pulse that gleans towards what is right, what is just, what is good, and what is free to make ours a better world. This singular award, its salience and substance, and the precious memory it stands for, I shall forever treasure.

Indonesia is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries, and its indigenous peoples (IPs) are estimated at seventy million, or nearly 30% of the country’s population. However, the question of who they are, where they are, and what rights they can claim is contentious in light of state policy that, in the name of national integration and unity avoids facing the realities of ethnic division.

This is the challenge that an IP movement in Indonesia has taken up, and in this movement one person has played a strategic role. ABDON NABABAN, a Toba Batak from Sumatra, began his social advocacy as a student and continued as a non-government organization (NGO) officer after graduation. In 1999, after the fall of the Suharto regime, he was one of the organizers of a congress that launched AMAN (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, or “Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago,” a mass-based organization that today has over 115 local chapters and 21 regional chapters throughout the country’s thirty-four provinces; collectively, AMAN represents over 17 million members. As AMAN executive secretary and later its secretary-general, NABABAN has led what is now Indonesia’s largest, most influential non-state organization.

When AMAN started, Indonesia’s indigenous peoples—masyarakat adat—were defined by state policy in a way that limited their official recognition to only one million people. AMAN’s major challenge was to represent the actual vast population of masyarakat adat, totaling fifty to seventy million, and thus become a real, autonomous force. AMAN also needed to build its strength as a movement to a level where it could effectively influence state policy. Under NABABAN’s leadership, AMAN’s legal challenge to existing forestry laws finally won in 2012 a landmark constitutional court ruling which decreed that forests in IP territories are not “state forests,” thus returning some fifty-seven million hectares of government-controlled forest land to indigenous communities.

In a related initiative, NABABAN shepherded a massive effort to produce “One Map” of the country’s vast IP territories, after AMAN and supporting NGOs launched the Ancestral Domain Registration Agency in 2010, to create a single data base for verifying land/forest claims on ownership, use, and tenure in view of incomplete, inaccurate and conflicting government data. By 2016, AMAN had submitted to government “indigenous maps” covering 8.23 million hectares. But NABABAN’s arduous crusade continues: the constitutional court ruling and AMAN’s maps still await implementation.

Still AMAN under NABABAN’s dynamic guidance, has raised the bar in declaring that IPs will no longer be placeless and invisible. Equally important, AMAN has built up its membership from 200 communities in 1999 to 2,342 communities in 2017, representing a constituency of seventeen million individuals. It raised its public visibility and worked collaboratively with government in legal reform, conflict settlement, and economic empowerment. In the 2014 election of President Joko Widodo, AMAN delivered 12 million votes for Widodo after he made six commitments to address the IP sector’s needs. While government still has to deliver on these campaign commitments, AMAN has proven that it is a political force that cannot be ignored.

Acknowledged as the single most important person in Indonesia’s IP movement, NABABAN has worked tirelessly for twenty-four years, braving great difficulties and at tremendous cost to himself and his family. Before AMAN, he was not really conscious of what it meant to be an indigenous person until, working in an anti-logging campaign, he realized that the land taken over by a big industrial lumber estate was actually ancestral land that belonged to his grandparents and other Toba Batak families. He has since raised this discovery of IP identity and responsibility to involve millions of others. Speaking with quiet force he says, “It’s about self-identification. You have to make people understand: ‘This is about me. This is about my forest, this is about my land, this is about my water.’”

In electing ABDON NABABAN to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his brave, self-sacrificing advocacy to give voice and face to his country’s IP communities, his principled, relentless, yet pragmatic leadership of the world’s largest IP rights movement, and the far-reaching impact of his work on the lives of millions of Indonesians.

I receive this award with infinite gratitude to the creator of the universe, God almighty, and the ancestors who protect, accompany, and guard me always. I would also like, from the bottom of my heart, to thank all my friends in AMAN. This award is for us.

I dedicate this award to my parents, my wife Devi, and my daughters Meilonia, Mena, and Mayang, who are at home but with me here, too.

Me and my family, we’ve been through a lot. There were even times when I was scared. But, everytime, we overcame. And we grew.

I became an activist in the late ’80s, opposing the all-too-powerful New Order Regime. In the ’90s I realized that I was also a victim. I am one of millions of indigenous peoples in Indonesia. At the time, I—an activist, a victim, an indigenous person—fought an industrial forest company in our ancestral lands. That company, however, was just a front for the real oppressor: authoritarianism and developmentalism. For them, we, the indigenous peoples, were not wanted. We are to be oppressed, to be eradicated, criminalized, impoverished, victimized. Devi, you knew all this, through the years of our frugal life together. You stood by me every time, with trust, hope, and love.

From the very beginning, I have been on assignments given by my people and constituents: to initiate and lead organizations and alliances for the oppressed and for the environment. Because those assignments come with hope and trust, too. My latest assignment is from the indigenous peoples in North Sumatra—that is, to run for governor. This is a province so corrupt and violent.

It took me and my family a long time to finally overcome the fear for our physical, financial, political, and social well-being with this assignment. Again, because of the trust and hope placed upon me, I said, “Yes, I am running for governor of North Sumatra.”

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight is also a night to ask ourselves: where do we come from? What values, what spirit can we offer our society and our earth?

When differing opinions or interests manifest into violent conflicts, when the misuse of religion causes more killings, when developing the economy means destroying the environment, standing here before you, I offer the values and spirit of indigenous peoples to tackle present-day problems of our society and the environment—inequality, crimes, climate change—in a way that is not violent, but humane and sustainable.

And let our countries, Indonesia and the Philippines, lead the world towards peace, where the well-being of people, plants, animals, water, soils, and air prevail.

In Singapore, one of the world’s wealthiest economies, poverty is not as stark and visible as in much of the world, but it exists for ten percent of the country’s population of 5.7 million. It is a problem that can be statistically glossed over in ways that can dull human sympathies, foster moral complacency, and obscure the fact that in the end, poverty is not a matter of numbers but of real people needing other people’s help.

Singaporean TONY TAY was born into poverty. Abandoned by his father when he was five, homeless, his mother barely surviving on transient work, TONY and a sister were put in the care of an orphanage, while two other sisters stayed with a foster family. At twelve, TONY dropped out of school, had to find food where he could, and started working at odd jobs. By sheer grit and perseverance, he slowly pulled himself out of poverty, started a printing business; and finally had his own home, raising his own family in modest comfort.

In the Singaporean ethos of self-reliance, he could have easily put the past behind him. And he did, until he was fifty-seven when, at his mother’s funeral, he was deeply moved by the great number of people who came to give their respects to his mother. Despite her own difficulties, she had devoted herself to charity work with the Canossian Sisters. Inspired, TONY and his wife began their share of doing good for others—collecting unsold bread and vegetables from the market and bringing these to the Canossian convent to be given to the needy. Enlisting family and friends, they began to cook what they had gathered in their home kitchen, delivering packed meals to the poor and elderly.

Their “one hot meal revolution” had begun. In 2003, TONY organized “Willing Hearts,” a fully volunteer-based, non-profit organization that distributes hot, packed meals daily to the needy. Starting with just eleven volunteers and distributing three hundred meals daily, Willing Hearts now cooks six thousand meals every day, which are delivered to forty distribution points in Singapore. It operates 365 days a year and has some three hundred regular volunteers, operating out of a facility in a public community center. Their beneficiaries are neglected and abandoned elderly and persons with disabilities, the sick, children of single-parent households, low-income families, and migrant workers.

Supported with donations in cash but mostly in kind, its facility operates daily from 4:30 AM to 3:30 PM as volunteers collect, prepare, cook, pack, and deliver meals in a systematic cycle of work that respects the people they serve by seeing to the quality and quantity of the food, observing food safety, and segregating Muslim and non-Muslim meals. Willing Hearts has not missed a single day of food-giving since it started fourteen years ago.

Willing Hearts has extended its services to optical and dental care, “So people can better enjoy their food,” TONY says, expressing a typically Singaporean love for food. But it is not just about food. What gratifies TONY is how the simple sharing of food has fostered the spirit of volunteerism: taxi drivers have volunteered to deliver food packs; parents bring their children to the group’s kitchen to help; volunteers and their families are nurtured by their Willing Hearts experience in the virtues of service, empathy, and kindness.

Today, TONY participates in all aspects of the work, all day every day. He has no grand vision of what he is doing, except that people must love one another and that “God will provide.” He often speaks of Willing Hearts as a way of being part of one family, one village—a poignant statement from one who did not have much of a family growing up. He says: “We are just sharing, sharing all that we have in life to make a better society.”

In electing TONY TAY to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quiet, abiding dedication to a simple act of kindness—sharing food with others—and his inspiring influence in enlarging this simple kindness into a collective, inclusive, vibrant volunteer movement that is nurturing the lives of many in Singapore.

Thank you for the award. It is a great honor.

Willing Hearts started with one word—yes. Yes to the Canossian sisters to help them collect extra bread that were not sold for the day from a bakery. Yes to distribute the rest of the bread to those who needed it. Yes to collect the extra vegetables from the wholesalers. Yes to my wife when she asked to cook for the elderly who couldn not cook for themselves. Yes to all who asked for help along the way.

And along the way, I asked for help and many said, “yes,” so Willing Hearts is a journey of many who said, “yes” to those in need.

I never thought that our work would grow so big. There were no big plans when we started. There are no big plans now. There are no big plans for the future. Just one plan: God’s plan.

There are many people to thank. I would like to thank and offer this award:

• To God: the honor and glory belongs to God for making all things possible. He has given me the strength and the courage to keep Willing Hearts going. Without God’s blessing, we would be nowhere.
• To my late mother: for being the model and the spirit behind Willing Hearts.
• To my wife: for being the pillar of support in my journey. As they say, “Behind every successful man, there is a woman.” Thank you for always being there, Mary!
• To the donors, supporters, and volunteers: for believing and supporting Willing Hearts since day one, and for being there 365 days a year, to help the needy all these years.

Lastly, thank you to everybody here for sharing this honor. I salute and give my best wishes to the other award winners.

The power of the arts to raise awareness, shape identities, impel action, and change societies is a truth commonly acknowledged, yet it is not always evident. In the Philippines, no theater organization has been as committed and effective for so long in demonstrating this truth as the PHILIPPINE EDUCATIONAL THEATER ASSOCIATION (PETA).

Now on its fiftieth year, PETA was founded with the initial vision of creating a “national theater” in the Philippines. Working out of a theater in the old ruins of Intramuros, Manila, this non-profit organization rose to prominence with groundbreaking productions in Filipino, the national language, that were remarkable for their artistry and social relevance, at a time of resurgent nationalism and deepening political crisis in the country. After Martial Law was declared, PETA stayed active, together with other groups, in staging theater as a medium for protest and conscientization even under a dictatorship. By the time democracy was restored in 1986, PETA had built a fund of experience, knowledge, and skills to respond to new and continuing challenges, staying true to its vision of a “people’s theater” directly engaged with the realities of the time.

PETA has grown way beyond its early traditions as a theater company. It is today an integrated, people-based cultural collective engaged not only in performance but also in training, curriculum development, national and international network building, and mobilizing communities using a participatory approach that is rooted in local culture and responsive to real issues in the larger society.

Operating as a collective of “artist-teachers,” and now with its own permanent home in the PETA Theater Center, PETA’s major units include Kalinangan Ensemble, its repertory and performing arm; the School of People’s Theater engaged in year-round training and community development; and a Special Programs unit that undertakes specific advocacies, ranging from women’s and children’s rights and the plight of domestic and overseas workers, to environmental protection, reproductive health, and electoral reform. Focused on the trifold goals of artistic excellence, holistic education, and social development, PETA has fostered people’s creativity in combining the traditional and contemporary; infusing this creativity into the pedagogical practices of the country’s schools; and advancing a people’s development agenda by empowering communities and releasing their creative energies to effect positive social change.

Two sterling examples illustrate the range and diversity of PETA’s development engagements. From 2005 to 2010, PETA took the lead in the Greater Mekong Sub-region Partnership, which mobilized, mentored, and supported a host of performing artists from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and southern China to effectively undertake advocacy-through-the-arts on issues that included gender, health, sexuality, and HIV-AIDS. Then in 2013, working with local partners in the immediate aftermath of super-typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda’s devastation, PETA launched the bold initiative Lingap Sining (Nurturing Through the Arts), a culturally-grounded, participatory program in Leyte province that creatively harnessed the arts in interventions ranging from emergency relief and psychosocial debriefings to disaster preparedness training and the building of more resilient, DRR (disaster risk reduction)-ready communities.

Over five decades, PETA has produced 540 original, translated, or adapted plays, reaching an audience of close to a million across the nation and abroad; it has helped form more than three hundred community-based culture collectives; and conducted training workshops that have involved 4,650 artists, school teachers, community leaders, and development workers. Still, these “artist-teachers” remain clear-eyed and steadfast about the future; PETA president Cecilia B. Garrucho asserts, “Our vision is to have a nation of fully-actualized citizens, creative, and able to find a way, a solution, even when it seems like there is none.”

In electing the PHILIPPINE EDUCATIONAL THEATER ASSOCIATION to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes its bold, collective contributions in shaping the theater arts as a force for social change, its impassioned, unwavering work in empowering communities in the Philippines, and the shining example it has set as one of the leading organizations of its kind in Asia.

(The response was delivered by PETA President, Cecilia B. Garrucho)

In 1967, PETA staged Bayaning Huwad, a Filipino translation of Virgina Moreno’s The Straw Patriot, directed by PETA founder Cecile Guidote. For me, as a young person then, the play was a powerful lesson about Philippine history and heritage. It was my very first time to watch a play where the actors spoke in Filipino. I sat there overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of our own language. I remember asking, how have I become a total stranger to my language and to my culture? That play changed the entire direction of my life. I felt that, as a Filipino, I have finally come home.

Inspired by the play, I joined PETA. We were taught very early on that whatever we learned as artists, we were to share by teaching others, especially non-theater people. We were to use our art to serve. We went in small teams to barangays all over the country. The purpose was always to draw out the creative power of ordinary folk – women in poor communities, students and public school teachers, child workers in sugarcane fields, farmers, workers, and fisherfolk. It didn’t matter whether they were literate or not. The PETA workshops’ main goal was to give people the creative tools to be able to tell their stories that tackled ways to solve their common problems that would bring about healing from trauma and that spoke of their dreams and aspirations.

As actors, we would bring the stories of the people we met to life on stage so that their voices could be heard. It was then that I finally came to understand the power of theater to transform lives, both mine and of others. I tell my story of personal transformation simply because it is a most common one. PETA’s other artist-teachers have similar stories to tell. These inspired them to embrace a vision larger than themselves, to use theater to help transform the lives of people.

So, armed with this commitment, the artist-members plunged into years of trailblazing work, adding more productions to PETA’s list of original plays. Collaborating with many sectors, PETA developed and refined its pedagogy of people’s theater. This we shared with groups across the country, with our partners in the Mekong Region and Asia, as well as with migrant Filipinos and many other groups in Europe, North America, and Australia.

Fifty years have passed. We continue to do what we do because with the stories we discover in the communities, we see potential for a better society to be realized. With every play we put on stage that inspires young people to reflect, to ask questions, to give way to imagination, understanding, and insight, we see the possibility of a generation of Filipinos who could embrace the task of building a better future for our society.

And because theater is an art that involves so many, allow us to thank those who contributed to our cultural work throughout PETA’s 50 years. We remember our members and staff who have passed away. We thank all the PETA alumnae, current members, and staff, many of whom are here with us tonight. Please stand to be acknowledged. We thank our board of trustees, past and present. Our many partners – too many to mention, but they know who they are – who understood and supported our work. Our appreciation also goes to Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, PETA visionary and founder. And we share this award with all theater groups, who, despite limited resources, keep theater alive in this country. Most of all, we deeply thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for recognizing that arts and culture have an important role to play in building a nation.

This award inspires us to create more stories for our people, so that through the power of theater and arts, we can move forward with hope to create a just, peaceful, and inclusive society. Maraming salamat po.