A Catholic priest dedicated his Ramon Magsaysay Award to the victims of former president Rodrigo Duterte's bloody war on drugs. The award, Asia's highest honor, recognized his 'transformative compassion' in restoring dignity to the marginalized. In his speech, he called for a truth commission to investigate extrajudicial killings.
At the awards ceremony in Manila's historic Metropolitan Theater on Friday, Fr. Flaviano Villanueva said the recognition was 'never about me,' but about 'the many lives and hands that gave it meaning' – the homeless, grieving mothers, and volunteers serving despite exhaustion and fear. 'When injustice persists, silence wounds the soul. To stop the bleeding, we need to start the healing and to start the healing, we must continue asking the difficult questions,' he stated.
He displayed a list of extrajudicial killing (EJK) victims and remarked, 'The names that I dedicate this award to are names that will never appear in the plaques, but they did appear in the news. But in appearing in the news, they appeared judged, maltreated, and even branded as people who fought back, even if it were lies.' Villanueva echoed Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David's call for President Marcos to form a truth commission, posing questions like: 'How many were truly killed? Who were the perpetrators? How were they killed?' He added, 'That is why I strongly propose and support the creation of the EJK truth commission.'
A member of the Society of the Divine Word, Villanueva founded the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Foundation in 2015 to provide meals, hygiene services, and psychosocial care to Manila's street dwellers. In 2016, amid peak drug war killings, he launched Project Paghilom to offer widows and orphans grief counseling, legal aid, livelihood training, and educational support. He also opened Dambana ng Paghilom within La Loma Catholic Cemetery in Caloocan, where the cremated remains of 111 EJK victims are interred.
He described the honor as 'not a medal to display, but a mission to renew,' emphasizing that mercy must continue to 'wash the tired feet of our nation' until dignity is restored to the forgotten and oppressed. 'Hope is what the poor have taught me. They have shown me that dignity can rise even from the streets, that kindness is stronger than cruelty and that love when lived is the only revolution that lasts,' he added. The award was shared with Maldivian environmentalist Shaahina Ali and the Indian group Foundation to Educate Girls Globally, also known as Educate Girls.