Certificate award border

MANILA, July 30 Kyodo

A Filipino chief justice, a South Korean Buddhist monk, a Pakistani nun, a Burmese doctor, a Nepalese journalist and an Indian activist were named Tuesday as winners of this year's prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia's version of the Nobel Prize.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, named after late Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay, said Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. won the price for government service for ''his principled citizenship in profound service to democracy and the rule of law in the Philippines.''

Davide presided over the aborted impeachment trial of former President Joseph Estrada that eventually led to Estrada's ouster.

Buddhist monk Sukho Choi won the peace and international understanding award for ''his compassionate attention to the human costs of Korea's bitter division and his hopeful appeal for reconciliation.''

This year's winners also include Ruth Pfau, a Catholic nun in Pakistan who for many years led the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Center, a modern hospital and training center. Pfau, a doctor, won the price for public service. She is being honored for her ''lifelong dedication to eradicating leprosy and its stigma in Pakistan and other loving gifts to her adopted country.''

The foundation awarded Cynthia Maung, a Karen doctor who fled Myanmar in the wake of a brutal military crackdown of 1988, the community leadership award for setting up a makeshift clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand, a border town awash with refugees.

''(Maung's) being cited for the humane and fearless response to the urgent medical needs of thousands of refugees and displaced persons along the Thailand-Burma border,'' the foundation said.

This year's recipient of the journalism, literature and creative communication arts is Bharat Koirala, founder of the Nepal Press Institute, ''for developing professional journalism in Nepal and unleashing the democratizing powers of a free media.''

Sandeep Pandey, founder of Asha (Hope) in India, won this year's emergent leadership award ''for the empowering example of his commitment to the transformation of India's marginalized poor.'' The foundation said Sandeep began Asha to raise money among Indians in the United states for education and for poverty relief among India's poor.

This year's winners will each receive a certificate, a cash prize and a medallion bearing the likeness of Magsaysay who died in a plane crash in 1957.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award is given yearly to outstanding individuals imbued with a ''greatness of spirit.'' The foundation has given awards to 223 individuals.

This year's six winners will be honored at a ceremony on Aug. 31 in Manila.