The 1989 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

CITATION for James Bertram Reuter Jr., SJ

Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
Manila, Philippines

In Asia today the mass media exercises a powerful influence, informing the public and shaping its attitudes. And increasingly so. Yet, when monopolized by government or vested interests, media's power is easily used for propaganda purposes. In open societies it is often squandered in trivial entertainments. Father JAMES BERTRAM REUTER JR, S.J., swims against the tide.

As a young American religious scholastic assigned to the Philippines, Father REUTER directed his first stage play in 1941 and wrote scripts for the "Commonweal Hour," a popular Catholic radio program. Imprisoned during the war, he wrote songs and skits to rally fellow internees. Following ordination in the United States in 1946, and a course in broadcasting, he returned to the Philippines. At the Jesuit academies Ateneo de Naga and, from 1952, Ateneo de Manila, he immersed himself in a whirlwind life of teaching, coaching, and supervising everything from the school newspaper to the glee club.

He made his mark in dramatics. Year after year his Ateneo Players— augmented from Manila's Catholic schools for girls staged memorable plays and gala musicals. He was an exacting director who subjected young thespians to his passion for achieving perfection by hard work. They yielded and learned. Some launched successful careers in professional broadcasting and theater. But for most, Father REUTER's amateur theatricals were really a school for life. To many he became a lifelong mentor and friend.

In time Father REUTER became the church's all-around media man—a priest whose parish encompassed stage and studio, airwaves and press. He introduced Catholic programming to Philippine television and helped set up Radio Veritas. He wrote, adapted, directed, and produced radio, television, and stage plays. These bore lessons of Christian faith, social responsibility, and personal morality to Philippine audiences and exemplified his crusade for high standards, substance, and ethics in media.

Under Martial Law, Father REUTER struggled to keep Catholic radio stations alive and raised his voice in a small weekly magazine. But like his earlier newspaper column and television programs, this, too, was muzzled. Arrested and tried by the government, he was released under an uncertain amnesty. In the presidential polls of 1986, REUTER's fellow Catholic broadcasters challenged election fraud by helping orchestrate a nationwide independent vote count. During the ensuing "People Power Revolution," he moved behind the scenes to keep a radio voice on the air. Prominent among those from media who put their lives on the line to inform and mobilize the public were his former students and players.

Father REUTER once described the early Jesuits as "great-souled men with powerful minds and strong wills." Hard-driving yet compassionate, REUTER is described this way himself, not least by his erstwhile student actors and stage hands whose lives he touched permanently by insisting from them their very best.

In electing FR. JAMES BERTRAM REUTER JR., S.J., to receive the 1989 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes his employing his gifts as writer, theatrical director, and broadcaster, but most of all as teacher, to make the performing arts and mass media a vital force for good in the Philippines.