Composer Raymundo “Ryan” Cayabyab joined a campaigner who tackles youth suicide in South Korea, two journalists, and a human rights activist on Friday among the winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Cayabyab, 65, was recognized for “his compositions and performances that have defined and inspired Filipino popular music across generations,” the Manila-based award foundation said in a statement.
The annual award is named for the Filipino president who died in a 1957 plane crash. This year’s winners will receive a cash prize and a medallion at a Manila ceremony on Sept. 9.
Called “Maestro” in local music and showbiz circles, Cayabyab is also being recognized for “his indomitable, undeterred confidence to selflessly seek, mentor, and promote young Filipino musical genius for the global stage; and his showing us all that music can indeed instill pride and joy, and unify people across the many barriers that divide them.”
Meanwhile, Kim Jong-ki, whose 16-year-old son took his life after being bullied in school, received the 2019 award for helping South Korea face one of the developed world’s highest suicide rates.
Kim, 72, was recognized for “his quiet courage in transforming private grief into a mission to protect Korea’s youth from the scourge of bullying and violence.”
Over 24 years, Kim’s Foundation for Preventing Youth Violence has carried out wide-ranging anti-bullying campaigns, run a hotline that now takes up to 50 calls a day, introduced counselling and mediation, and lobbied the government for new policy and laws.
Suicide was the second leading cause of death among teenagers in South Korea as recently as 2005, with school bullying directly related to more than half of the cases, the award foundation added.
Journalists Ravish Kumar of India and Ko Swe Win o Myanmar were also winners of this year’s award, along with Thai human rights campaigner Angkhana Neelapaijit.
Neelapaijit, 63, is the widow of a prominent human rights lawyer who was abducted and later murdered after publicly accusing the military of torturing detainees in the troubled Muslim region of southern Thailand.
The former housewife took up her late husband’s cause and established the Justice for Peace Foundation to document the situation in the area, provide legal aid to victims, and put pressure on the government to act on human rights cases.
Neelapaijit, who later served as commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, was cited for “her systematic, unflagging work to reform a flawed and unfair legal system”.
Ko Swe Win, 41, is the editor of the Myanmar Now, an independent online news service known for its well-researched, in-depth articles on the country’s under-reported human rights and social justice issues, the award foundation said.
“The effort to build a strong, independent and socially responsible press has to contend with draconian laws, rabid intolerance, repression and persecution,” it added.
The editor spent seven years in prison as a young man, where he endured torture and starvation for taking part in student protests against the ruling military junta.
India’s Ravish Kumar, 47, is the host of NDTV India’s “Prime Time” programme that sheds light on Indian society’s under-reported problems and who has endured harassment and threats for calling the country’s highest officials to account.
