A call to keep serving, a family name to keep clean

A call to keep serving, a family name to keep clean

ASIAN EXEMPLARS Often called Asia’s Nobel Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards honors individuals or organizations embodying greatness of spirit, transformative leadership and selfless service, attributes that also define the legacy of the seventh Philippine president. Photo shows the 2024 awardees in rites held on Nov. 16 at the Manila Metropolitan Theater. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ASIAN EXEMPLARS Often called Asia’s Nobel Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards honors individuals or organizations embodying greatness of spirit, transformative leadership and selfless service, attributes that also define the legacy of the seventh Philippine president. Photo shows the 2024 awardees in rites held on Nov. 16 at the Manila Metropolitan Theater. —Contributed photo

MANILA, Philippines — On Nov. 16, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards marked its 66th anniversary.

For the first time, I was tasked with handing out the awards, as representative of the late president’s family. It was an honor for me, the grandson of the seventh president of the Philippines, to join five distinguished Asians who received the award established to perpetuate the values my lolo believed in.

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When I watched my father, his namesake and only son, hand out awards last year, I did not realize that he would ask me to do it for him this year. He decided it was time for the younger generation to do the honors of handing out the awards that have become Asia’s most prestigious. My dad simply said that he would rather I give out the awards this year, as he felt it was time for me to take over that duty. He has been telling me this day was going to come sooner than later since about three years ago.

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I have been to the Magsaysay awarding ceremonies since I returned from the United States in 1993 when I was 25 years old. But I was always just a spectator, watching my dad on stage with the Magsaysay laureates. The event was always amazing and inspiring and made me take stock of what I was doing in my own life and start thinking about doing my share to help those in need.

I am used to being on stage as a speaker, so that part of the ceremonies was not new to me. What was different was participating in handing out the medals and citations.

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The people receiving the Magsaysay Awards had shown greatness of spirit in service to the peoples of Asia regardless of race, gender, or religion—an expanded version of my lolo’s commitment to serve the Filipinos.

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Awe and inspiration

Being on stage gave me a very different perspective on the ceremony. For one, I got to see the reaction of the crowd to the introduction of the awardees and their acceptance speeches. The awe and inspiration were evident.

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Talking to the awardees, it was remarkable how simple they were and yet had the courage and fortitude to take on Herculean challenges to do what was right.

It was inspiring to know that the values and virtues of my Lolo Monching are lived by the Magsaysay awardees.

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As the son of a former senator and the grandson of a former president, my relatives and I have always been exposed to these ideals from a very young age, and we have all tried to practice it in our daily lives, no matter where our paths took us. From a very young age, we were always told to keep the Magsaysay name “clean” and to live with the virtues of hard work, honesty and integrity.

I did not get to meet my grandfather. When he died on March 17, 1957, my dad was only 18 years old.

Admittedly, it was not easy having Ramon Magsaysay as a role model, even if I did not get to meet him personally. Even without the awards named after him, his shoes were already too big to fill—heroic World War II guerilla fighter, congressman, secretary of defense, and president.

But we have always lived the way he would have wanted us to, so I do not know how difficult it must be for others as this is all we know. Fortunately, although I was told about the legacy of my Lolo Monching, I was not nagged about it. It was mentioned every once in a while. I only remember being told often to keep the name “clean.”

Despite being the grandson of a president and the son of a senator, I was never pressured to join politics, nor was I inclined to. My father believed that one way to serve was to do well in one’s calling. Later, I would realize that, for me, that calling would be ice cream, Carmen’s Best.

My dad told me that if I wanted to help people, I could help without being in politics or government. There are many credible foundations that are run very well and are transparent in doing their work. We were encouraged to help through them.

This I have always tried to do when I took over the family business after my dad returned to politics as a senator in 1995. I did consider running for office in 2013, but after my cancer diagnosis I dropped the idea.

Passion project

And, by then, I had decided politics was really not for me. I wanted to create a name on my own and have my own identity. In our first year of operations in 2011, we started helping the PGH (Philippine General Hospital) Medical Foundation Inc. In 2018, we started to help the Good Shepherd Foundation in Baguio City.

The business was really never about just making money. It was a passion project that just grew as people supported it.

While I was the one tasked this year to represent the family in the annual Magsaysay Awards ceremonies, it does not mean I am the only one honoring my lolo’s legacy.

I have cousins who have done more to help other people. Dr. Ralph Valenzuela, who teaches at the UERM (University of the East Ramon Magsaysay) Medical Center, has dedicated his life to healing the sick. His brother Mike is an educator and a La Salle Brother.

I am now making sure to instill in my children the values that my grandfather stood for: integrity, hard work and honesty.

There will come a time, hopefully in the far future, when I will have to pass the torch to the next generation as well. I want to make sure that my children are worthy of the legacy their great grandfather left, not just on the family, country and region, but also on the world.

I tell them the same thing my father told me—how we have kept the name of the Magsaysay family clean and that we should continue doing so. That the Rockefeller family had such admiration for lolo and the ideals and values he lived by, that they initiated the establishment of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.

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Former President Ramon Magsaysay may have left this world too soon, but in his short life, he managed to leave an enduring legacy that brings pride not just to us his family, but to all Filipinos.

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