FeaturesGethsie Shanmugam, a Sri Lankan teacher who counseled war widows and orphans to overcome their nightmares, was among the six winners of awarded at this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize. Vice President Leni Robredo on Thursday praised the six new Ramon Magsaysay Award laureates, saying they brought hope amid a “dangerous” tendency in the public mindset to shun democracy and freedom, a statement said. “A dangerous narrative is creeping in,” Robredo said in a speech at the presentation of the awards held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. As guest speaker at the Ramon Magsaysay Awards ceremony for the second year, Robredo was given a standing ovation after she was introduced as the “duly elected Vice President and highly respected official” of the Philippines. The awards were named after the popular Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay, who died in a plane crash in 1957 midway into his first term of office.

Source: Sunday Times September 01, 2017 11:37 UTC