Young leaders from across Asia gathered online for ten days in June in what organizers described as “ten inspiring, youth-empowering days.”
The event dubbed the “NextGen Leadership Program” was organized by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation through its “Transformative Leadership Institute” from June 14-25.
The participants, 33 young people from across the region, went through expansive learning sessions with recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, dubbed as Asia’s Nobel Prize.
Among the speakers were Mechai Viravaidya from Thailand, Saur Marlina Manurung from Indonesia, Youk Chhang from Cambodia, Sonam Wangchuk from India, and Kim Jong-ki from South Korea.
Yoshiaki Ishizawa from Japan, Mahabir Pun from Nepal, Chung To from China, and Conchita Carpio Morales, Antonio Oposa Jr. and Ryan Cayabyab from the Philippines, also spoke during the event.
The discussion was premised on the idea that each one is challenged “to moments of greatness of spirit” if one chooses “to be empathetic, to listen deeply, and to connect and act together for a better Asia.”
Cayabyab, a 2019 Ramon Magsaysay awardee, told the participants “to look within” and not to imitate what is dominant in the global community.
“We want to not sound like everybody else. Write in your own language, not just English or Tagalog; learn to love your own culture, to generate more creative songs,” said the Filipino musician.
“Express your own feelings and stories. When the regional gets into the mainstream, we will be on the way to being global,” he said.
Cayabyab was given the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his contributions to arts as a composer, arranger, music director, conductor, performer, and educator.
“The next generation should be better than us for our country to move forward. For this to happen we must teach them everything we know at every possible instance,” he said.
Indonesia’s Manurung, a 2014 Magsaysay laureate, also called for the use of the “mother tongue” especially in education.
She stressed on the importance of “contextual education based on local customs and challenges” and to learn from the communities.
“Learn their ways, discard colonial perspectives, understand their native knowledge,” said Manurung who teaches indigenous children.
Manurung received the 2014 Ramon Magsaysay Award for her ennobling passion to protect and improve the lives of Indonesia’s forest people.
“Never succumb to pressure, be beyond the reach of influencers,” said Carpio-Morales who received the Magsaysay Award in 2016.
“It was heartwarming to see the participants deeply engaged in the sessions,” read a statement from the organizers.
Morales was a regional trial court judge, a justice in the Court of Appeals, and finally a Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court.
In 2011, she was appointed as the Ombudsman, where she professionalized and upgraded her office’s capabilities. She filed cases against high-ranking officials, including a former president, a former vice-president, incumbent senators, congressmen, and governors.
She recognized that corruption is not just a matter of persons but systems, taking the initiative in creating an integrity management-based program that mobilizes government agencies and the public, and addresses the lack of strategy and direction in the overall anti-corruption campaign.
For her moral courage and commitment to justice in taking head-on one of the most intractable problems in the Philippines, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
