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Salonga wins 2007 Magsaysay
Award Former Senate President Jovito R. Salonga is among the seven winners of the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize. Salonga, 87, won the award for government service for “the exemplary integrity and substance of his long public career in service to democracy and good government in the Philippines.”
On his being named a Magsaysay awardee, Salonga told the Philippine Daily Inquirer: “I am humbled by the award. It’s supposed to be a secret until we receive the award on Aug. 31.” The six other winners included three Chinese activists, an Indian journalist who highlighted vital social issues, a South Korean advocate for the disabled and a Nepalese pioneer in wireless technology. “The
Magsaysay awardees of 2007 are truly moving Asia forward through
their remarkable and selfless service to their respective societies,”
said Carmencita T. Abella, president of the Ramon Magsaysay Award
Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday. Legal scholar After topping the bar examinations in 1944, Salonga established himself as an influential legal scholar and educator. A veteran lawmaker, he was elected to the Senate thrice. He is known as a staunch nationalist and a crusader for clean government and public education. Salonga’s persistence in exposing the anomalies of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos earned for him the title, “Nation’s Fiscalizer,” according to the Philippines Free Press.
He was crippled by a bomb blast at a Plaza Miranda rally in 1971, a year before Marcos declared martial law. He fought Marcos’ iron-fisted rule by defending the President’s opponents, working for the release of political prisoners and was the lawyer of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. Salonga was briefly jailed in 1980 and spent four years in US exile. He returned a year before Marcos was ousted in a People Power revolt and put his personal ambitions aside to back Corazon Aquino, the pro-democracy icon who succeeded Marcos. Moral authority As the first chair of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, Salonga initiated the government’s legal efforts to reclaim wealth allegedly stolen by the Marcoses. He was also the first post-EDSA I Senate President and, in 1991, he led his colleagues in ejecting the American military bases from the Philippines. He also authored laws to protect the state from plunder and military coups. “[The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Government Officials and Employees] was one item I authored. There’s a more important bill I authored and that was the Anti-Plunder Law for which President Joseph Estrada is being tried. I also authored the Anti-Coup D’Etat Law,” Salonga told the Inquirer. “His rare moral authority stems from a simple fact: He practices what he preaches,” the Magsaysay foundation said. The Ramon Magsaysay award is named after the Filipino President who died in a 1957 plane crash. This year’s winners will be honored on Aug. 31 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Pasay City when they will receive a medallion, a certificate and a cash prize.
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