I want to thank very much the trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for bestowing upon me the honor of this award for international understanding.

Many former Magsaysay awardees have taught me how the poor can improve their own situation and habitat with their own energies: Dr. Akhter Hameed Khan, Dr. Mohammed Yunus, Fr. Richard Timm, Duang Prateep, and the Bogum Jahru team from Korea.

I want to thank my Philippine friends because they called me to this work and guided me from the beginning to now. They are the organizations Freedom to Build, Marian, COPE, CHHED, Pagtambayayong, UPA, FDUP, and the Human Development Office of the Jesuits; and so many other individuals and people’s organizations.

Thanks to the friends from the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights, representing all the countries of Asia.

I need to thank especially the urban poor with whom I have related and collaborated during these years. But to tell you the truth, when I was called to this podium to receive the prize, I had a very strong feeling that I was not the real recipient of this award. The only thing I did was to try to understand the heroic struggle of millions of human beings who, for survival, left the countryside and are enduring the inhuman conditions of urban slums. Of course, I will transfer the whole amount of the prize to them, but still that is not enough. I feel that they are telling me:

Jorge, it is okay. Go ahead. You can receive the prize for international understanding for us and for our children. We are unnecessarily sick and we are dying before our time because our water is not clean. We do not have toilets and medicines. We do not have permanent jobs. Yet we are also citizens. With respect to our habitat, please ask society to stop the people who aggravate our situation by throwing our women and children to the streets. Please do not evict us without giving us a decent alternative. More than a hundred thousand of our families are evicted every year in Asia.

Ask society to please support our efforts to improve our environment. Hundreds of thousands of us are involved in innovative approaches to do this. If there are problems, please collaborate in improving communication between us and those inpower. And in your good efforts to improve our lot, please be consistent from one government administration to the next. When you do that, and implement programs for several years, things begin to change.