August 01, 2008	Friday	Rajab 28, 1429

MANILA, July 31: A woman Philippine provincial governor who dislodged a local political clan and a couple from India who built a hospital and a school for a remote tribe are among the winners of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, organisers announced on Thursday.

The award, named for a popular Philippine president who died in a plane crash in 1957, is considered the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said Governor Grace Padaca, 44, won the award for government service for empowering voters in her northern province of Isabela to “reclaim their democratic right to elect leaders of their own choosing”.

Prakash and Mandakini Amte, a husband and wife team of doctors, were cited for community leadership for enhancing the ability of the Madia Gonds tribe in eastern Maharashtra state to adapt to modern society through their healing and teaching work.

Padaca, struck by polio as a child, worked as an accountant for a radio station, Bombo Radyo, in Cauayan township but soon became a popular radio commentator tackling corruption, illegal gambling, logging and her province’s stagnating economy and ravaged environment.

She lost her bid for a congressional seat against a candidate from the politically entrenched Dy family in 2001, but won against another member of the clan as governor in 2004 and again in 2007.

The Amtes abandoned their urban practices in 1974 when Prakash’s father, renowned Gandhian humanitarian Baba Amte, called him to take over a new project among the Madia Gonds, who lived on hunting, gathering and shifting cultivation.

The couple moved to the remote Hemalkasa region and lived simply among the tribesmen, learned their language and patiently gained their trust.

The Amtes’ 50-bed hospital and five doctors treat 40,000 patients a year for free. Their school introduced the tribe to settled agriculture — growing vegetables, fruits and irrigated grains organically — and encouraged conservation and protection of forests and wild animals.

This year’s other winners include the Philippines’ Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development and Therdachai Jivacate of Thailand, who shared the award for public service.

Therdachai, 68, was cited for his work to provide artificial limbs for poor amputees through mobile workshops, including several in Malaysia, Laos and Myanmar, where victims lose their legs to landmines, diabetes and snake bites.

The Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development was recognised for successfully replicating microfinance modelled after Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank in the Philippines in an effort to provide financial services to half a million poor women.

Akio Ishii, 67, head of the Akashi Shoten publishing house in Japan, won the award for journalism, literature and creative communication arts for publication of works that focus on discrimination, human rights and other “difficult subjects” in Japanese society, the award body said.

The award for peace and international understanding went to Indonesia’s Ahmad Syafii Maarif, a 73-year-old Muslim intellectual recognised for guiding fellow Muslims to embrace tolerance and pluralism as the basis for justice and harmony.

Ananda Galappatti, a 33-year-old British-trained psychologist from Sri Lanka, will receive the award for emergent leadership for his “spirited personal commitment” to provide effective services to victims of trauma from war and disasters such as the 2004 Asian tsunami. The awards will be presented on August 31 in Manila.—AP