RAMON MAGSAYAY

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Context: In response to a report that the CPI (M) had vetoed her selection as a finalist for the international Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2022, former Kerala health minister K K Shailaja said that she had consented to her party’s decision. Shailaja said that in view of the anti-communist stance of Ramon Magsaysay, the former Philippines president whose legacy the prestigious award honours, and for its foundation’s decision to consider her as an individual recipient for what was a state initiative, she had declined her nomination.

Details:

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.
Shailaja was considered for the award for her performance as state health minister from 2016 to 2021, a period which saw Kerala fight against the Nipah virus and Covid-19.

Who was Ramon Magsaysay?

Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay Senior was the seventh president of the Philippines, from 1953 until his death in an air crash in 1957.
The Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon or the People’s Army Against the Japanese, popularly known as the Hukbalahap (Huk), was a prominent guerrilla outfit that fought the Japanese.
Huk leaders were viewed with suspicion over their declaration of commitment to communism and the demand for peasant rights.
Magsaysay drew upon his own experience of guerrilla warfare to initiate a two-pronged system of reforms and military campaigns. It was under his administrative and military policies that the Huk threat was considered to be neutralised.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award:

In 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay award was set up by trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Philippine government to carry forward Magsaysay’s legacy of service to the people, good governance, and pragmatic idealism.
In the six decades since 1958 — the first year the Award was given out — over 300 organisations and individuals have been recognised for their developmental endeavours crucial to Asia, and, consequently, to the world.
The award is given out every year on August 31, on Magsaysay’s birth anniversary.
Prominent Indians who have won the award include Vinoba Bhave in 1958, Mother Teresa in 1962, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in 1966, Satyajit Ray in 1967, Mahasweta Devi in 1997.
In recent years, Arvind Kejriwal (2006), Anshu Gupta of Goonj (2015), human rights activist Bezwada Wilson (2016), and journalist Ravish Kumar (2019) have won the award.