Bernadette Madrid (Photo from the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation)
MANILA, Philippines — For her role in running “the best medical system for abused children in Southeast Asia,” a pediatrician at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) was named one of this year’s four recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, considered Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize.
Dr. Bernadette Madrid, head of UP-PGH’s child protection unit and a prominent children’s rights advocate, was named a Magsaysay laureate during an online ceremony on Wednesday by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF).
The 53rd Filipino to receive the award and the only woman among the 2022 winners, Madrid was joined by Sotheara Chhim, a Cambodian psychiatrist treating victims of the Khmer Rouge; Tadashi Hattori, a Japanese ophthalmologist who has provided free eye surgeries and trained other doctors to bring medical services to Vietnam’s remote villages, and Gary Bencheghib, a French environmentalist who is cleaning up Indonesian waterways.
The four were chosen for embodying the transformative influence that defined the life of the seventh Philippine President after whom Asia’s premier prize was named.
The annual award, established in 1957, honors those who have performed “selfless service to the peoples of Asia.”
“This year’s roster of Magsaysay awardees have all challenged the invisible societal lines that cause separation and have drawn innovative and inspiring ones that build connections,” said Aurelio Montinola III, the foundation’s chair.
Madrid, according to the foundation, was recognized for her “unassuming and steadfast commitment to the noble yet demanding advocacy of child protection.”
27,000 children
In particular, she was praised for her “leadership in running a multisector, multidisciplinary effort in child protection that is admired in Asia, and for her competence and compassion in devoting herself to seeing that every abused child lives in a healing, safe and nurturing society.”
Under her leadership, the UP-PGH’s child protection unit—the first such facility in the country—has provided medical, legal, social and mental health care to more than 27,000 children and their families who have suffered abuse.
As the head of the Child Protection Network Foundation Inc. (CPN), Madrid designed programs and sought partnerships with family courts, schools, hospitals and other institutions in advancing the cause of child protection, according to RMAF.
Madrid also had a hand in the forging of a multisector partnership between UP Manila, PGH, CPN, the Department of Health and the private sector to form the Network of Women and Child Protection Units (WCPUs).
That network now consists of 123 WCPUs across 61 provinces and 10 cities, serving 119,965 children and adolescents and 30,912 women. Their staff is composed of 237 physicians, 199 social workers and 85 police officers.
This work, the foundation noted, calls for Madrid to be a “doctor, educator, researcher, social leader, organizer and advocate all at once.”
But Madrid continues to do the tireless work. “I feel that I was prepared to do this work. I was given the talent to do this and it has developed as I worked,” she told the foundation, adding: “That’s why I’m happy. It has become, for me, work that is God’s work.”
Born to a family of professionals in Iloilo, Madrid studied medicine and pediatrics at UP Manila and completed her postresidency fellowship in ambulatory pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, according to the foundation.
‘Broken courage’
Also recognized by RMAF was Chhim, 54, a psychiatrist and survivor of the murderous, ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime that killed nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population through starvation, overwork and mass executions in the 1970s.
He was cited for devoting his life to helping people who suffered under the Khmer Rouge, with a focus on treating “baksbat”—“broken courage”—a syndrome seen in Cambodia resembling post-traumatic stress disorder.
The organizers praised “his calm courage in surmounting deep trauma to become his people’s healer.”
Chhim also testified as an expert witness before a UN-backed tribunal trying senior Khmer Rouge leaders. “I’m … traumatized myself as a victim under the Khmer Rouge, but working to help survivors of the Khmer Rouge helped me heal myself, too,” he said in a 2017 interview.
Bencheghib, 27, was given the award for his efforts to clean up Indonesia’s polluted waterways.
Plastic bottle kayaks
Bencheghib and his brother have built kayaks made of plastic bottles and bamboo to pick up trash in the Citarum River, one of the most polluted rivers in the world.
Hattori, 58, was honored by RMAF for providing free eye surgeries in Vietnam, where such specialists and facilities are limited. To date, Hattori and his team of Vietnamese doctors have treated more than 20,000 patients.
His generosity, according to the foundation, was “the embodiment of individual social responsibility.”
Each Magsaysay laureate will receive a certificate and a medallion bearing Magsaysay’s likeness during the formal awarding ceremony on Nov. 30.
—WITH A REPORT FROM AFP
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