Filipino Ramon Magsaysay Award winner brings peace covenant after Mangyan family massacre

Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, known as "Iye", is the only woman among four 2023 Ramon Magsaysay awardees with contributions to peacebuilding that helped Occidental Mindoro, southwest of the country's capital, establish a peace covenant after the 2003 Mangyan family massacre.

The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF)on Thursday, August 31, in its 65th year, announced the winners via a Zoom conference. RMA is Asia’s premier prize and highest honor.   

It celebrates the memory and leadership example of the seventh Philippine president, after whom the Award is named, and is given every year to individuals or organizations in Asia who manifest the same selfless service and transformative influence that ruled the life of the late and beloved Filipino leader.

The other awardees are Ravi Kannan (Hero for Holistic Healthcare) from India, Eugenio Lemos (Food Sovereignty Visionary) from Timor-Leste, and Korvi Rakshand (Education-for-All Champion) from Bangladesh and Miriam Coronel–Ferrer (Women in Peace-Building Pioneer) from the Philippines.

Norman Novio, municipal administrator of Sablayan, is among those whom Coronel-Ferrer had worked with in her stint as the main convenor of the Sulong Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law or Sulong(CARHRIHL) Network.

In an exchange of emails on Saturday morning, Novio, while still a program coordinator for the Social Action Center (Social Services Commission) of the Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose (AVSJ) in the early 2000s, said he had first-hand experiences with Coronel-Ferrer, that attest to her "deserving the RMA award in peace work."

The AVSJ was then coordinating the documentation and facilitation of a series of dialogues between the Mangyan leaders and Army Officers operating at that time in Occidental Mindoro, he said.

"We escorted Ms. Ferrer to visit the far-flung Indigenous Cultural Communities and military camps for interviews to develop a Peace Manifesto between the Mangyan leaders, elders, and the Philippine Army Officers,"  said Novio.

The hard, efficient, and committed work eventually resulted in a 2005 Covenant between the 203rd Brigade of the Philippine Army and the Pantribung Samahan sa Kanlurang Mindoro (PASAKAMI) which was signed by 203rd Brigade Commander Col. Fernando Mesa and PASAKAMI Chairman Juanito Lumawig.

The covenant signing was held at the chancery building of St. Joseph Seminary in San Jose town.

"The Covenant was an offshoot of a bloody we call the Talayob Massacre where an entire Mangyan family was fired upon by army soldiers from the 16th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines on July 21, 2003, in Sitio Talayob, in Barangay Nicolas, Magsaysay, Occidental Mindoro," said Novio.

"The victims who died from the indiscriminate firing were Roger Blanco who expired on the way to the hospital, his wife Oliva, who was then eight months pregnant, and their two sons, John Kevin, 3, and Dexter, 2," said Novio.

"The tragic incident opened the partnership between PASAKAMI/AVSJ and the Sulong CARHRIHL Partner organizations in Manila, where Mangyan leaders are always invited to various conferences on peacebuilding and other human rights-related activities and events in the national capital," said Novio.

Novio believes that the Sulong CARHRIHL Network played a significant role in facilitating the creation of the National Action Plan on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, which the Philippine Government subsequently adopted in 2010.

"I believe that Prof. Iye has an instinctual understanding that injustice is not an ally to peacebuilders. This is what I learned from her: Peacebuilders are everywhere, and anyone can be one. Regardless of gender," said Novio.

During the short acceptance speech of Coronel-Ferrer via a 30-minute Zoom conference on August 31, she did not miss "peace and justice are basic human needs."

September is National Peace Consciousness Month.- Madonna T. Virola