The 1964 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

RESPONSE of Pablo Torres Tapia

It is with a deep sense of humility and gratitude that I accept the honor you have just conferred upon me, an Award which is in recognition of a community movement of which I was only a part.

I accept the Award and the honor on behalf of our community—the people who shared our beliefs and our hopes, the people who worked with us, the people who bore with us the sacrifices and hardships that must be borne in the effort to improve themselves, their community and the country.

With this signal honor you have bestowed on me, please allow me to reaffirm and rededicate myself to the noble ideals and great deeds of a great man—our beloved Ramon Magsaysay—who did so much for so many in such a short span of time, a period of dedicated, enlightened and sincere public service, which, unfortunately for the country, was so abruptly cut short by his untimely death on a desolate mountain in Cebu.

Let me say that out of the cash award, a permanent scholarship shall be created at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture for a deserving but poor student, a permanent endowment shall be given to support five high school scholars in our province, and a trust fund will be started to engage the services of a livestock technician to help our farmers. I am also making available to the Tanauan Facoma a sum necessary to purchase more modern printing facilities for our Tinig ng Tanauan.

I feel that with these the memory of our beloved Ramon Magsaysay, the principles he stood for, and his efforts to help our country and our people, shall, in a small way, be perpetuated for posterity.

Let me take this opportunity also, to express my deepest thanks to the Trustees of the Foundation for the distinction they have conferred upon me, our community, and our bank. My only regret is that there are many persons, living and dead, who shared in the labors of this civic undertaking but must remain anonymous, and that some of those who worked with us cannot now be here, and that they died little knowing that they had participated in a movement that could provide inspiration to the entire country and throughout Asia.

You have honored me in a way I never dreamed of.

This venerable Award shall not be my badge of retirement—as one's work is never done. Rather, it shall serve as a fountain of inspiration and a reservoir of strength in my efforts to continue to contribute—to do my little bit—in everybody's job of community development for our loved ones, for our future generations and for the country.