Since the institution of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards in 1959, only three individuals who took home the Asian equivalent of the global Nobel Prize can be considered to have direct connection to Davao region. Interestingly, all three honorees had been involved in Education. These awardees—two of them working as church workers—are not popularly known but their social contributions qualified them to be part of the roster of distinguished achievers.
If the name Fr. Joaquin Vilallonga, SJ, does not sound familiar, it’s because he was one of the first Magsaysay honorees when the award was first given in 1959. Born in Burriana, Castellon, Spain on August 13, 1868, he was assigned in 1917 as Superior of the local Jesuit mission at Davao before accepting the assignment as Rector of the Diocesan Seminary at Vigan, Ilocos Sur. He was bestowed the recognition at the ripe age of 92.
Recognized as a “learned scholar of philosophy, theology and canon law, a lucid writer and notably a sympathetic priest,” Fr. Vilallonga helped administer the spiritual needs of some 2,100 lepers, 1,600 non-lepers and the 120 members of the Department of Health at the Culion Leper Colony, in Palawan. As an educator, he taught Philosophy, Physics and Mathematics at Ateneo Municipal de Manila before taking a break to defend his Philosophy and Theology theses in the US. On his return to Manila in 1904, he rejoined the Ateneo faculty and was later appointed as its Rector in 1910.
On the other hand, Rev. Harold Watson, an American Baptist minister, was honored by the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for his contribution in the development of the Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT), a farming technique using the giant Hawaiian ipil-ipil (Leucaena leucocephala) in mitigating soil erosion, thereby promoting productivity in areas where lands are denuded as a result of swidden (kaiñgin) cultivation.
The son of farmers from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Watson, born in 1934, joined the U.S. Air Force after finishing high school. After completing military service, he pursued agricultural education at Mississippi State University before being ordained Baptist minister and went on to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas. He also taught vocational agriculture in Eatonville, Mississippi before he accepted the appointment to serve as an agricultural Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board.
Watson, with his wife in tow, arrived in the Philippines in 1964 but a year later the couple moved to Southern Baptist College in M’lang, Cotabato. Later, where he was asked to develop and direct a church camp in Kinuskusan, Davao del Sur with the help of a benefactor who funded the purchase of an abandoned farm left behind by its owner due to poor soil. It was here that he experimented on new techniques to control erosion with the help of few hardy souls.
His agricultural contributions did not stop there, though. He also helped develop FAITH (Food Always in the Home) Garden, a simple but impressive farming concept:
“Bamboo baskets are sunk a third of a meter in the ground and packed with house and garden waste and ipil ipil leaves. Tomatoes, squash, eggplant and other vegetables are planted around the baskets and draw their fertilizer from them. After each crop the compost in the basket is spread on the soil to enrich it and the basket is refilled. He also introduced new breeds and methods of raising ducks, rabbits, goats, pigs and pond fish; better vegetable seed; and ideas for utilizing Leucaena for feed. The center sells animals and information booklets cheaply to the poor farmers, and encourages translation, reprinting and condensing of all materials in order to distribute widely the information therein.”
On a yearly basis, over 6,000 people come from many Asian countries visit Watson’s farming center. For helping needy farmers and improving farming in impoverished communities, he was honored the 1985 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding.
Following Watson’s idea, thirty-one-year-old Randy Halasan, a teacher in Pegalongan Elementary School, Davao City, received the 2014 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership by introduction education and farming as tools in improving the quality of life in a very isolated tribal community of Matigsalog natives where he also served as public school teacher. (Pegalongan, according to oral tradition, means ‘the place from which the light shines.’)
To reach his place of work, Halasan had to travel seven hours over treacherous terrains riding on motorbikes, walked by foot, and crossed unpredictable rivers. Though initially he was not attracted to the place due to the absence of amenities, including lack of electricity and communication, he found reasons to stay put. In the award’s citation it says:
“Moved by compassion for the children who have to walk miles and cross rivers just to get to school, and who often fall asleep in class from hunger and fatigue, and driven by a sense of duty to help the impoverished and defenseless forest tribals against the encroachments of powerful outsiders, Halasan has embraced the Matigsalug community as his own. He has turned down offers for reassignment, and his family often does not see him for many weeks on end.”
Seven years after showing up in that far-flung village, the then two-room schoolhouse, as of 2014, had expanded to nine with a compliment of eight educators and 210 students with Halasan as principal teacher. Moreover, he “convinced parents to keep their children in school; discouraged the customary practices of early and arranged marriages; and promoted values of self-help and egalitarianism in the community.”
In 2015, Halasan, for the honor he has brought to the Davao City, was bestowed the Datu Bago Awards, the highest recognition given by the city to its residents.
