Laureates
By Antonio Montalvan II
Inquirer News Service

DAW Tee Tee Luce was a housewife in Burma when she provided abandoned street children in her native Rangoon not just with a roof but most importantly, with a home and the heart of a mother. Distressed by the growing incidence of crime, Daw spent a year studying the roots and breeding grounds of Burma's deserted children. In 1928, the Children's Aid and Protection Society she had established (with the help of spirited citizens) had put up the Home for Waifs and Strays. The "Home" lives to this day in Burma, also providing formal and physical education, as well as skills training in useful crafts.

In 1959, Daw was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, as an outstanding humanitarian with a great compassion for the downcast of society.

Pedro Tamesis Orata, a Filipino, is the father of the barrio high school movement for the rural youth of the Philippines. Born in Pangasinan in 1899, Orata earned his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1927. In 1934, he was a professor
in his alma mater, where he experimented on establishing a community school for a Native American reservation in South Dakota. That set forth his compelling personal philosophy about education as a universal birthright. In 1941, he returned to the Philippines, only to end up in a Japanese concentration camp.

After the Liberation in 1945, Orata returned to his native Urdaneta where he began pursuing his vision of barrio high schools, a rather unthinkable venture at that time as high school education was available then only in the provincial capital towns of the country. But in no time, Orata had 15 barrio schools. When he was 65 years old, barrio high schools could be found in 43 provinces and six cities. The citation in his 1971 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service singled out Orata's insistence that rural youth equally deserved to be given the opportunities available to those that are open to their urban counterparts.

Orata's vision provided the impetus to the development of an educated Filipino citizenry, even as it gave millions of Filipinos in rural areas hope of a brighter future.

Enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan was a principle assuring citizens of equality and equal protection before the law. But changes in the political landscape "weakened" that principle such that the assault, rape and murder of Pakistani women (who, most often, have no effective recourse to justice) became commonplace. Pakistani woman-lawyer Asma Jahangir changed all that. Jahangir was only 18 years old when her father was arrested by Pakistan's martial law government. Upon finishing her law studies at the age of 28, she organized a law firm that catered mostly to women-clients who found her as their only hope under the most vexing circumstances. As her clientele grew, Jahangir broadened her role in reforming her country's society, but not without paying a severe price for it. In 1984, the military dictatorship of Zia-ul Haq imprisoned her for sedition. Meanwhile, her law firm continued its defense of women by pleading forcefully against laws that discriminated against women. Her free legal aid center published reader-friendly pamphlets and had a team of paralegal assistants that educated women on their legal rights. Her valiant efforts paid off with important victories in the Pakistani Supreme Court. Today, her struggle-for the repeal of unjust laws legitimized by theocracy and lawlessness-continues. In electing Asma Jahangir to receive the 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the foundation recognized her struggle for religious tolerance in her country, and with it her fight for equal treatment and protection of Pakistani women before the law.

We are in the annual season of what is considered Asia's Nobel Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards. This Wednesday, Aug. 31-following tradition-the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) will honor six outstanding Asians from India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Korea and Thailand, two of them women, with the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for their accomplishments in the fields of emergent leadership, community leadership, public service, government service, journalism, literature and creative communication arts.

Last week, the RMAF concluded its nationwide essay writing contest for high school and college students. In the board of judges for the contests' Mindanao eliminations were two of Mindanao's writers and poet laureates-Christine Godinez Ortega and Anthony Tan. I had the privilege to be in their company for that occasion.

Reading through the entries of the contest only heightened my realization that today what we have is a crisis of heroes. The RMAF deserves credit for initiating this contest, which puts primacy on the values of heroism, selflessness, social compassion and community service for our impressionable young people in high school and college to imbibe. I see this as a hopeful contribution to the task of nation-building.

But we are not only in a crisis of heroes today. We also are in a crisis of saints. What we have are many saints, in fact, of the self-proclaimed variety. Enough of all the finger-pointing! Obviously, in our hierarchy of values, truth enjoys the lowest premium. Too often, we forget that when we point a finger to blame somebody, three other fingers are pointed right at us. Self-righteousness has become a comfort zone, and it is a dangerous attitude.

Few people deserve and will ever deserve to be in the roster of the Magsaysay Award laureates. I think of the day when we no longer need the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, when selflessness and charity reign supreme in the hearts of men and women.

Comments to monta@cu-cdo.edu.ph