2017 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee: Japanese Yoshiaki Ishizawa in Angkor Wat

The annual Ramon Magsaysay Awards presentation ceremonies on 31 August, birthday of the late president, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines is one event worth attending.

Here, one meets outstanding individuals "who address issues of human development in Asia with courage and creativity, and in doing so have made contributions that have transformed their societies for the better."  We learn about their extraordinary achievement from their citations, and hear directly from them their stories after receiving their medals and certificates.

This year's awardees comprise five individuals: Yoshiaki Ishizawa (Japan), Lilia de Lima (Philippines), Abdon Nababan (Indonesia), Gethsie Shanmugan (Sri Lanka), Tony Tay (Singapore), and one organization: Philippine Educational Theater Association or PETA (Philippines).

Yoshiaki Ishikawa as his citation was being read. Seated behind include the other awardees, 

Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo and RMAF board chair, Ramon R. del Rosario, Jr.

Ishisawa, an eminent scholar of Southeast Asian history and one-time president of Sophia University, is associated with Angkor Wat to which he has devoted fifty years of his life. This is a major Buddhist temple in the Angkor--inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992--which he first visited as a student in 1961. Since then he has been involved in its conservation except during the years of civil war and political unrest from 1970 until the Khmer Rouge went out of power in 1979. But by then, the Cambodian conservationists were all gone.

The conservation of Angkor, he said in his response to the award, "is not my efforts alone ... but of numerous friends and colleagues [and] his staff at the Sophia University Angkor International Mission [simply called the Sophia Mission]."

He started working again with the Cambodians in 1980, established international networks, campaigned for awareness and support in the Japanese media, and devised programs to protect and conserve Angkor. These all led to the launching of the Sophia Mission for research, training and conservation work.

Tourists today make the magnificent Angkor Wat in Seam Reap one of their major destinations in southeast Asia. What they see and enjoy as a premier cultural heritage of Cambodia came from Izhizawa's relentless leadership of Cambodians and Japanese experts in the conservation and restoration works.

They restored, for example, the Buddlist temple Banteay Kdei, excavated 274 statues of Buddha in 2001, and completed major repairs on the western causeway in 2007, which is now a key access to Angkor Wat.

Ishikawa about to receive his medal and certificate.

"Our reason," he said, "for insisting on rescuing Angkor Wat is because this would signify a call to the people to return to the peace that once characterized the Angkor period, as well as a call for them to rebuild their nation once more."

The appeal for Angkor's restoration is also "a plea for reconciliation between ethnic groups, and the revival of the [Cambodia's] culture," he added.

He stressed that "the preservation and restoration of Cambodian cultural heritage should be carried out by the Cambodians, for the Cambodians."

Towards that end, the Sophia Mission is deeply involved in the training of human resources. They selected 18 individuals and sent them to Sophia University to acquire doctorate and masters degrees. They are now senior officials of the government. The Mission has 'systematically raised awareness among Cambodian school children and villagers to take pride in their heritage and become its protectors and conservators.'

The board of trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) elected Yoshiaki Ishizawa to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award in recognition of 'his selfless, steadfast service to the Cambodian people, his inspiring leadership in empowering Cambodians to be proud stewards of their heritage, and his wisdom in reminding us all that cultural monuments like the Angkor Wat are shared treasures whose preservation is thus, also shared global responsibility.' 


All photos by the author.

Add fun to a vacation in Japan - look for beautiful manhole covers

These manhole covers in Himeji City feature cranes/egrets in flight.

In our first vacation in the western part of Japan recently, we found something novel that added more fun to our tour of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites there:  looking for manhole covers!

Saijo City: sake brewery chimneys.

The fun came in the discovery that each city we visited had distinctive manhole covers. These have artful images that convey the spirit of a city to the walking tourist. They detract from the fact that they cover entries to the city's underbelly comprising sewage tunnels, water pipes, networks of telephone and power cables.

Our first find was in Saijo City in the Hiroshima Prefecture. While we were listening to our kimono-dressed English-speaking lady guide to one of the city's iconic sake breweries, we passed by this beautiful manhole cover.  We later learned that this cover can only be found on the city's Sakagura-dori street.

It features the typical red-brick brewery chimneys and familiar shapes of sake containers in color. Saijo is considered the 'City of Sake' of Japan.  Some of the finest brands are made here, one of which has been nicknamed 'Obama sake' because the American president enjoyed it.

Symbolic flowers of Matsuyama City.

The colorful manhole cover of Matsuyama in the Ehime Prefecture bears the city's symbol: camellia flowers in white and red. We found this while we were walking to the Dogo Onsen Honsan, a wooden public bathhouse that dates back to 1894 during the Meiji period. The waters are from Dogo Onsen, one of the oldest and most famous hot springs of the country.

Egrets are the theme of the round and rectangular manhole covers of Himeji City in the Hyogo Prefecture. We walked past them on our way to the fully restored Himeji Castle, a wooden national treasure with a 600-year history.  Its Main Keep, painted in white, appears to have five stories. It resembles a bird about to fly. The castle is also known as Hakuro-jo ('White Egret') or Shirasagi-jo ('White Heron') castle.

Deer is the symbol of Nara.

A deer occupies a prominent place in the manhole cover of Nara City in the Nara Prefecture. The deer is the symbol of the city. Hundreds of deer roam around Nara Park, and visitors are cautioned to take care of paper and food they carry on their way to the heritage shrines and temples there:  a deer may suddenly grab them to munch.

A visitor to Kobe City in the Osaka Prefecture may likely get a welcome greeting from a manhole cover.  "Welcome to Kobe!," the cover proclaims in English and shows the visitor the modern features of the city: tall building, tower, modes of transport, etc.

We found out that these covers have caught the interest of visitors to Japan. In fact, there's a webpage that features a hundred of them already.  Only one of our six discoveries are in that list: the Matsuyama with the camellia flowers.

A metallic voice of welcome from Kobe City.

There was a time that manhole covers in Manila were stolen because apparently there was a profitable market for metals intended for export to mainland China. We wonder if they were artistic like those of Japan; would they be collector's items in the art world?