Magsaysay awardees lauded for ‘great spirit’

Vice President Leni Robredo (6th from left) and Ramon del Rosario (5th from left) poses with the winners of the Ramon Magsaysay awards (L-R) Thodur Madabusi Krishna (India), representative of Vientianne Rescue (Laos), representative of Dompet Dhuafa (Indonesia), Conchita Carpio Morales (Philippines), Bezwada Wilson (India) and representative of Japan Overseas Cooperation (Japan) during awarding ceremony at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on Wednesday, August 31, 2016. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

They are “giants who walk among us, who remind us that our world is getting better,” Vice President Leni Robredo said of the six recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay (RM) Award, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, who were formally honored on Wednesday.

The awarding rites at the Cultural Center of the Philippines also paid tribute to 1962 RM awardee for international understanding Mother Teresa, who will be canonized on

Sept. 4.

Recognized for their “greatness of spirit” were Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, Indian Karnatic musician Thodur Madabusi Krishna, Indian human rights activist Bezwada Wilson, the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers, Laos’ Vientiane Rescue and Indonesia’s Dompet Dhuafa.

“I thank the RM Foundation for showing us consistently for 50 years now that giants walk among us. The annual search reminds us of something so beautiful: that our world is getting better, not worse,” Robredo said in her congratulatory remarks.

“(The awards remind us) that we can, if we so desire, unite rather than divide. That beyond the daily desperation, we can choose to find inspiration and act on them,” she added.

The Vice President had previously attended the occasion twice—when her husband, former Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo, accepted the award for government service in 2000, and in 2012 when the foundation paid tribute to the then interior secretary who had died in a plane crash.

“It is not just [the six awardees] who are players in the games of humanity and inspiration. You are, too,” Robredo told the audience. “Find the giant and the hero in you, and the sacrifices and hard work will finally find root in the societies of the world.”

She added that ideas were more powerful than guns, more persuasive than money and “more commanding than even dictators,” when used to cultivate humanity.

Robredo also lauded the six awardees, including Morales, whose “strict, professional and systematic efforts” have turned her office into “a beacon of hope for a nation yearning for stronger institutions.”

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