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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Filipino priest who restores dignity to poor, homeless wins 2025 Ramon Magsaysay award

Filipino priest who restores dignity to poor, homeless wins 2025 Ramon Magsaysay award

Published Aug 31, 2025 04:37 pm
Filipino priest Flaviano Antonio L. Villanueva of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) has been named a 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for his work in restoring dignity to the poor and homeless.
Villanueva, popularly known as Father Flavie, is being honored for “his lifelong mission to uphold the dignity of the poor and the oppressed, daily proving with unwavering faith that by serving the least of their brethren, all are restored.”
In 2015, he founded the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Center in Tayuman, Manila, to provide “dignified care and service” to indigent Filipinos. Its flagship programs reflect his integrated approach: KALINGA (Kain-Aral-LIgo-naNG-umAyos, meaning Eat, Learn, Bathe, to be Well) offers meals, shelter, and hygiene facilities, while Paghilom provides emotional healing, restoring dignity, and helping families rebuild their lives.
“I felt a strong affinity with the widows,” Villanueva said, recalling the plight of women who lost their families’ breadwinners in the government’s drug war.
“They had lost their family’s breadwinner, and were desperate. The Center’s Paghilom program welcomed them, providing dignified, holistic care encompassing emotional and spiritual restoration,” he added.
Villanueva has also led efforts to recover the bodies of victims of the “war on drugs,” mobilizing resources for their exhumation, cremation, and inurnment at the Dambana ng Paghilom (Shrine of Healing), the country’s first memorial columbarium for drug war victims.
His activism has not been without risk. In 2020, he and ten others, including another priest, were charged with sedition.
The case was dismissed in 2023, but threats to his life persisted. These, he said, only deepened his resolve to seek justice.
“Justice can take many forms—among them, the recovery of one’s self-confidence, and forgiving oneself,” Villanueva said.
A former drug user himself, Villanueva turned his life around in 1995 as a lay missionary in Bicol.
He entered the seminary in 1998 and was ordained in 2006.
He now draws on his own transformation to prove that “even the most wayward and destitute can find redemption and renewal.”
According to Villanueva, the Ramon Magsaysay Award reminds everyone that Greatness of Spirit is a living force calling people to serve as witnesses of the light by defending the truth and spreading goodness.
He said the recognition humbles him and renews his commitment “to act justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with my God.”
“I accept this honor on behalf of the countless homeless people in search of a fraction of space in the street to call ‘home’ and on behalf of the courageous widows and orphans victimized by the ‘war on drugs.’ Their resilience to rise from the ashes of injustice, poverty and impunity is a stark revelation that from a fractured world, a beautiful spirit and person can arise,” he said.
Completing the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award roster are Shaahina Ali of the Maldives, recognized for her fight against plastic pollution and marine conservation, and Educate Girls from India, cited for their groundbreaking work in addressing gender injustice in education in rural areas.
The 67th Ramon Magsaysay Awards will be held on Nov. 7, 2025 at the Metropolitan Theatre, Manila, where Villanueva and his fellow awardees will be formally conferred. The rites will be livestreamed on the foundation’s Facebook and YouTube accounts.
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