A Call for Peace to Putin

The Rotary Club of Manila is 103 years old today. It has the privilege to Chair the Rotary Centennial Clubs, a group of centenary Rotary clubs all over the world. This means one hundred years of service to humanity - one of Rotary’s flagship projects has been the eradication of polio all over the world. Almost half of that or for 56 years since 1966, the Rotary Club of Manila has been recognizing outstanding journalists like the late Doroy Valencia and the Amando Doronilla. Their names speak volumes of positive impression on the Rotary Journalism Award itself.

In the words of Herminio Esguerra, the incoming Manila Rotary President, “all these are possible because of press freedom.” He and Rotarian Celso Abastillas joined hands to establish the Manila Times-RCM Scholarship Fund for aspiring future Outstanding Filipino Journalists. The Lifetime Achievement Awards goes to the venerable Emil Jurado whose totality of experiences is a legacy to younger generation of journalists – wrapped with his wisdom and wise counsel.

One Manila Rotarian, Joel Valdes, an economist and finance expert who served as undersecretary in the Department of Finance, opined that the Rotary Journalism Awards “has become more compelling as the ethical and philosophical bars need to be raised in a regime of fake news”.

What could be more compelling than watching a news report about the cruelty and ugliness of war and the pain of conflict, the misery of people under a constant threat to their lives and limbs, the painful separation of people from their loved ones, the bravery of citizens to defend their country brought forth by a journalist reporting from the front row of the deadly theater of war. Ms. Clarissa Ward, Chief International Correspondent of CNN reporting on the mayhem of war, succeeded in forcing us to ask “what is the value of freedom, the meaning of life” and we conclude that the peace of the world is not guaranteed by the accumulation of power and wealth but the restraint and self-control imposed by the compassion of shared humanity by the force and example of her reporting.

As such the 2022 RCM Pro Patria Journalism Awards is a message to Vladimir Putin and his generals that the world knows his crime and there is no better power and treasure but the compelling call for peace and freedom. What the Rotarians of the world, decent Russians included, are saying: Be Truthful, Be Fair, be a Man of Goodwill, think and Act to benefit the World.

The red-carpet ceremony will be held on 16 June 2022, 12:00 noon at the Conrad Hotel to coincide with the week’s celebration of Philippine Independence Day and the birth of the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

(The author is former Chairman, Social Security Commission. He is the author of “That a Man Dies Ignorant When He has Capacity for Knowledge is Tragedy”)