WIDELY considered as Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award marked its 58 years of operations last month.
All its awardees have a common thread: They exemplify integrity in public service and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. As such, they mirror the life of the late Philippine president Ramon “The Guy” Magsaysay.
To date, there have been 312 awardees since 1958. The Philippines has the most number with 55, followed by India with 53. The other countries most represented are Indonesia and Japan with 24 each, and Thailand (23).
Among the award categories is governance, of which six Filipino individuals/institutions have been honored: the late volcanologist Arturo Alcaraz (1982), Radio Veritas (1986), Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago (1988), the late Philippine president Corazon Aquino (1998), the late DILG secretary Jesse Robredo (2000), the late activist and human rights lawyer Haydee Yorac (2004), and former Sen. Jovito Salonga (2007), staunch fighter of corruption and most outspoken critic of martial rule.
For over 40 years, the awardees were over forty years old. Year 2000, however, changed that when the Emergent Leadership category was put up for nominees forty years old and below.
Salonga would have been proud of Indian Sanjiv Chaturvedi, one of this year’s awardees. Only forty years old, he is cited for “his exemplary integrity, courage and tenacity in uncompromisingly exposing and painstakingly investigating corruption in public office.”
As awardee, Chaturvedi is living proof that public service need not be synonymous with corruption and inefficiency. Neither does it mean that an insider who exposes the ills of government is a “traitor” or a “non-team player.”
Coming from a family of civil servants, it would have been easy for him to just coast along, show peripheral compliance, and play the three monkeys. Instead, this idealist exposed anomalies such as the use of public funds to develop a park on private land owned by a high official, the underpayment of license fees, and the rigging of government auctions.
He strengthened transparency and accountability, set up a system to track public complaints better, and closely monitored that contractual employees actually got their wages and benefits.
In so doing, government revenues increased, stolen public funds were recovered, and erring officials were either suspended or dismissed.
Expectedly, his road was rocky. Wherever he exposed corruption, retaliation came in fabricated charges trumped up against him. He was unceremoniously transferred a dozen times, threatened with disciplinary action, and suspended for “indiscipline.”
But his transfers only pointed to more areas of corruption. Among these were public funds embezzled with the use of non-existent foundations and fake signatures of officials. Sounds familiar.
Except that here, the accused are revealed in batches, the mastermind can fake poor health and pray for divine assistance, the suspected officials can post bail because of old age, and high officials with reportedly long records of corruption have the gall to run for the topmost post of the land.
Maybe we should import Chatuverdi.
(lelani.echaves@gmail.com)