Indian NGO ‘Educate Girls’ wins Ramon Magsaysay Award: What is this honour

Two individuals, Shaahina Ali from the Maldives and Flaviano Antonio L Villanueva, have also been awarded this year for their public service. Past Indian recipients include former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, journalist Ravish Kumar, activist Bezwada Wilson and environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk. Here is what to know about the award.

What is the Magsaysay Award?

Launched in 1958, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, widely considered to be Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize, recognises outstanding leadership and communitarian contributions in Asia.

The award was set up in 1957 by trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, created by the wealthy Rockefeller family in the United States, and the Philippine government. Over 300 organisations and individuals have been recognised over the decades, and the award is given out every year on August 31, on former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay’s birth anniversary.

The RMAF board of trustees select the winners following a confidential nominations process and their investigation. The winners are presented with a certificate and a medallion with an embossed image of Ramon Magsaysay facing right in profile. Both are presented in a formal ceremony in Manila, Philippines, every November of the same year.

And who was Ramon Magsaysay?

The official website states that “The life of Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay, the seventh President of the Philippines, is a testament to people’s ability to harness their greatness of spirit.”

He was born on August 31, 1907, to a father who worked as a blacksmith and a mother who was a teacher. Magsaysay started as an automobile mechanic before being drafted into the Pacific War (1941-1945) during World War II.

The Pacific War would see the Japanese occupation of the Philippines — then a colony of the US — for nearly four years. The US formally recognised the Philippines as an independent nation in 1946.

As a guerrilla leader resisting the Japanese occupation, Magsaysay’s bravery and leadership saw his appointment as a military governor. In 1946, he would be elected under the Liberal Party to the Philippine House of Representatives, where he would serve two terms as a Congressman before being appointed Secretary of National Defence in 1950.

On December 30, 1953, he was elected president of the Nationalist Party, the oldest political party in the Philippines. However, shortly after becoming President, he died in an air crash in 1957.