Professor Liang Congjie from China Institute of Culture received
the 2000 Philippine Ramon Magsaysay Award for his extraordinary
work on environmental protection.
Liang, who founded China's first non-governmental environment
protection organization "Friends of Nature," was conferred the
Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service at a presentation ceremony
held here Thursday night.
Philippine President Joseph Estrada and former President Fidel
Ramos attended the presentation ceremony.
The award, named after late Philippine President Ramon
Magsaysay(1907-1957), was established in 1957 and given every year
by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation to outstanding persons or
institutions in Asia.
Regarded as Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the award is
given in five categories, namely government service; public
service; community leadership; international understanding; and
journalism, literature and creative communication arts.
Other winners of the award this year include a former Philippine
mayor, Jesse Manalastas Robredo, who received the Government
Service Award, and Atmakusumah Astraatmadja from Indonesia who is
the awardee for journalism, Literature and creative Communication
Arts.
Aruna Roy from India won the Community Leadership Award while her
fellow countryman Jockin Arputham obtained the International
Understanding Award.
Since it was first presented in 1958, the award has been given to
15 institutions and 201 individuals, including this year's
awardees.
China's renowned ethnologist and sociologist Fei Xiaotong and
artist Ying Ruocheng won the 1994 Community Leadership Award and
the 1997 Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative
Communication Arts.
The award carries a certificate and medallion bearing the likeness
of the late president with inscriptions indicating the basis of
selection, and a prize of 50,000 U.S. dollars.
(People’s Daily)