Gethsie Shanmugam honoured among Asia's heroes at Ramon Magsaysay Awards

Gethsie Shanmugam, a Sri Lankan teacher who counseled war widows and orphans to overcome their nightmares, was among the six winners of awarded at this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.

Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday praised the six new Ramon Magsaysay Award laureates, saying they brought hope amid a “dangerous” tendency in the public mindset to shun democracy and freedom, a statement said.

“A dangerous narrative is creeping in,” Robredo said in a speech at the presentation of the awards held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. “People are using this to say democracy has failed mankind because freedom has caused the poor to remain poor while the rich gain more,” she said.

“But are we willing to give up our principles, are we ready to throw out our freedoms and rights for a change that goes against old-fashioned values of empathy and collaboration?” she said.

As guest speaker at the Ramon Magsaysay Awards ceremony for the second year, Robredo was given a standing ovation after she was introduced as the “duly elected Vice President and highly respected official” of the Philippines.

The Awardees included - Abdon Nababan, an Indonesian working for the return of large tracts of forest land to indigenous communities, a Singaporean businessman Tony Tay, who leads the cooking of 6,000 meals a day for the destitute, a Philippine theater group which stood up to a dictatorship and Lilia de Lima , a Filipino who oversaw the opening of job-generating export processing zones, Yoshiaki Ishizawa of Japan, who was honored for his efforts to help Cambodians restore the Angkor Wat temple; Abdon Nababan of Indonesia, for his advocacy on behalf of the Adat or indigenous communities of his country.

They received a medallion, a cash prize and a certificate.

“What I find most admirable is how they show respect for human dignity and faith in the power of collective endeavor,” Robredo said.

The awards were named after the popular Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay, who died in a plane crash in 1957 midway into his first term of office.