Beyond excellence: how the Ramon Magsaysay Award inspires transformative leadership across Asia

“Over the years, we would have conversations about that. What is ‘greatness of spirit’?” says Emily Abrera, former chairperson, vice chairperson and trustee of the Foundation. “To our official definition, I can add that one can feel ‘greatness of spirit’ when one comes face to face with it.” Indeed, a very Asian approach: fluid, ethereal, spiritual.

Take Vinoba Bhave, one of the very first Magsaysay Laureates, awarded in 1958. A disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhave walked across India to convince wealthy landowners to voluntarily give land to untouchables and poor peasants. He received the Ramon Magsaysay for Community Leadership, as did the 14th Dalai Lama the following year. The other five categories during the first 50 years of the RM Awards were Peace and International Understanding; Government Service; Public Service; and Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

“Over time, however, we noticed many were providing services usually to the poor, but who spanned several categories. It was hard to pigeonhole them,” adds Abrera. All of these crossovers would crop up every so often, pushing the Foundation to drop the categories altogether in 2009. “Everyone is a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee after all, embodying transformative service and greatness of spirit,” she expounds.

Before streamlining the five categories, the Foundation created one additional award specifically for younger leaders. Called the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, it honours individuals aged 40 or younger or organisations less than 10 years old that are driving transformative social change in Asia. “We wanted to inspire younger people. We wanted younger people to realise that they don’t have to have so many years of doing service to demonstrate their greatness,” informs chairperson Edgar Chua.

Since its launch in 2000, 21 have received the Award, which was supported by the Ford Foundation through its representative to the Philippines, Suzanne Siskel, who now serves as the Foundation’s vice chairperson. The Emergent Leadership Award is the only specific recognition category left after the traditional categories were removed in 2009.

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A stringent search

The RM Award’s reputation as the most prestigious in Asia did not happen by accident or without care. Confidentiality of the process has been successfully maintained over the years, including the anonymity of nominators and trusted researchers throughout the region. Searching for an ordinary person with a greatness of spirit can never be easy. “They are not well known, so a lot of research is necessary,” chairperson Ed Chua says.

The vetting process is, likewise, stringent and secretive. “The candidate must not know that he or she is being interviewed or monitored for the award,” says president Susan Afan, carefully measuring her words lest she spills more intel than she should. As to how this is done, Afan’s lips are tightly sealed. Suffice it to say that the researchers of the award can give international sleuths a run for their money when it comes to creativity.

All the difficulty of the screening and the scrutiny disappears, Afan says, when she witnesses how revered the Award is in the region. “At the Dalai Lama Museum in Dharamshala, India,” she shares, “the Ramon Magsaysay Award is prominently encased at the centre of the gallery, beside his Nobel Peace Prize. The nuns of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity gave the Foundation a piece of her sari, a precious relic being kept at the Ramon Magsaysay Center. And after receiving the RM Award, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh were given the Nobel Peace Prize.” So many stories are collected by Afan as she travels the region, representing the Foundation, connecting with potential funders and partners and checking in on how the awardees are doing.

A moral compass

“We look at our first 50 years not as nostalgia but as a moral compass,” says Afan. The years 2007-2008 were the pivotal period when major decisions evolved the institution into the Foundation it is today.

In 2009, after five decades of support, RBF was confident that the Foundation could stand on its own. In this transition year, the Board, then chaired by Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, noticed significant changes going on in the world. Issues were becoming complex, Asia had become borderless, and the definition of leadership was evolving. It felt that, as an institution, the RM Award had to evolve as well.

An initial meeting was held in San Francisco between the old guards of the RBF and the RMA Foundation to discuss this evolution. A strategic planning cum retreat was held to come up with a definitive view of Asia, the objective set by Zobel de Ayala, who triggered the discussion as to where and how the RM Award would begin to define the leadership ecosystem. He even brought in McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, to oversee this crucial planning.

A workshop in Manila brought together past and present trustees, setting the direction for the Foundation's next 50 years. It also sparked the idea of a leadership institute. Basically, everybody wanted the award to evolve into what they called then “an award ++.”

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“For 50 years we searched, we designated, we honoured, we celebrated,” says Abrera. “In our next phase, the Foundation wanted the awardees’ work to continue being relevant long after the celebration.” Thus, the Ramon Magsaysay Transformative Leadership Institute (RMTLI) was born in 2009. It was meant to connect and amplify transformative leadership and create a platform for Magsaysay Laureates to mentor and ignite action among the young.

Today, the Institute has created an active ecosystem of service, as Magsaysay Laureates share their tried-and-tested, life-changing work wherever it can be replicated. Laureate Romulo Davide brought the science of agriculture to the farmers, calling it “A Lab in the Farm”. Governor Morihiko Hiramatsu of Japan conceptualised the OTOP (One Town, One Product), which has been adopted by many countries, including the Philippines. One of the Institute’s most recent projects is its Compassionate Care Initiative, which brought 2024 RM Laureate Ravi Kannan R to the Philippines to share his best practices and experiences with cancer care in India with the Philippine Cancer Society. The exchange has contributed to the Society’s initial efforts to develop a Philippine Cancer Grid, drawing from the cancer care network and model Kannan has helped advance in India.

As the Foundation gears up for the 70th Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2028, Afan finds herself thinking about three things.

First is the preservation of the Ramon Magsaysay Center, designed by Alfredo J Luz and Associates, in consultation with Pietro Belluschi and Alfred Yee Associates, that opened in 1967. “Preservation, however, means more than maintaining the building but keeping it alive through exhibitions and events,” she elaborates.

Her second goal is to digitise and bring together the thousands upon thousands of archival materials and create a Magsaysay Laureate Gallery & Knowledge Center to be housed at the Ramon Magsaysay Center as well, where people can discover the stories of the Magsaysay Laureates. “Our photographs, Betamax tapes, books, biographies and thousands of archival materials are ageing, making their digitisation both essential and urgent,” she shares.

“Finally, I wish for Filipinos and Asians to take greater pride in what our people and our region are capable of. Questions about the Ramon Magsaysay Award and its Laureates already appear in India’s civil service examinations; I hope they will eventually be adopted in the Philippines as well. Above all, I want more Filipinos and Asians—especially the young—to discover these stories and be inspired by the possibilities within themselves and our region.”

In many ways, Afan adds, that brings us back to President Ramon Magsaysay himself and what he believed about the Filipino. She explains: “He had this deep faith in ordinary people and in what they can accomplish. I think that is a legacy worth carrying forward.”

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