PAGBABAGO
Dr. Florangel Rosario-Braid
Again, I am delighted and honored to share the announcement of the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation of its awardees who had been chosen for Asia’s highest honor. The 64th RM awards will be conferred during formal ceremonies on Nov. 30.
Let me share highlights in the careers of these four individuals cited for their service in transforming our world.
All four have gone through extraordinary journeys not only marked by outstanding professional competence and creativity, but also by humanitarian values of leadership. They represent the kind of citizenry worth emulating. As RM Awards president Susanna B. Afan notes, they offer us inspiring examples of “vision, leadership, empathy, persistence, and greatness of spirit.” As shown in the profiles, let me add moral courage, passion, compassion, and generosity.
It is interesting to note that three of the four come from the health sector, especially since this comes during our pandemic period. Sotheara Chhim of Cambodia is a leading mental health advocate. Tadashi Hattori of Japan is a sight-saving humanitarian; and Bernadette J. Madrid of the Philippines is a children’s rights crusader, while Gary Bencheghib of Indonesia, an anti-plastic pollution warrior.
Dr. Madrid is cited for her fight against one of the world’s greatest threats today – violence against children. Not merely physical but also social, cultural, psychological and economic. This “dark stain is a silent scourge that is often suppressed and unreported….as our child protection laws and safety nets are weak” states the citation. This challenge had been her primary advocacy as executive director of the Philippine General Hospital’s Child Protection Unit, the first such facility. For 25 years, she was at the helm of the “best medical system for abused children in Southeast Asia. A one-stop health facility, it became the axis of a national network of medical, legal and mental health services for abused children.”
Dr. Chhim played a leading role in mental health as executive director or Transcultural Psychosocial Organization, the largest non-government organization in mental health care in Cambodia. He developed the baksbat (broken courage), a post-traumatic state of fear, passivity and avoidance. One of his remarkable achievements was the role he played as an expert witness during the investigations on TPO (Truth, Trauma, and the victims of Torture), project held in connection with the investigation by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He conducted training on TPO’s activities which included gender-based violence against women, a hotline service on counselling and referrals during the Covid-19 pandemic, and Operation Unchain for mentally-ill patients.
Dr. Hattori of Japan founded the Asia-Pacific Prevention of Blindness in Asia, and together with investors, established the Japan International Eye Hospital in Hanoi. Aware of the need in rural areas, he led a team of Vietnamese doctors in providing free treatments to thousands of people. When he found out that many in Vietnam had gone blind because of lack of eye specialists, he used his savings to buy medical equipment, and for 180 days, he shuttled between Japan and Hanoi, donating equipment and supplies to hospitals. Dubbed as the “man with the golden hands” because of his expertise as a surgeon, he insists that it is still the heart that matters. Asked why he became a doctor, he said that he made this decision when he was 15, after seeing his cancer-stricken father so rudely treated. His motto is, “Treat your patients as your parents.”
Gary Bencheghib, awardee for Emergent Leadership has two passions – documentary filmmaking and the environment. This makes him so relevant today because of climate change and for championing what the UN describes as a “slow moving catastrophe that threatens the economy, health, and well-being.” This is marine plastic pollution. A French national in Indonesia, he started a weekly beach clean-up at age 14 together with an older sister and a younger brother. This turned into an organization called “Make a Change World,” that would produce inspiring, educational, multi-media content on plastic pollution. He later filmed an expedition on a kayak where he and his team paddled on the Citarum River in West Java, dramatizing what is called the “world’s most polluted river. This generated presidential action that led to a seven-year rehabilitation program.
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