RM awardee fears travel ban, skips ceremonies

Fearing a travel ban, Dr. Cynthia Maung did not come to Manila to personally accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership at the Cultural Center of the Philippines tonight.

The physician from Myanmar (Burma) will not attend the awarding ceremonies for fear that she might not be allowed to return to her clinic on the Myanmar-Thai border.

"I think she could come (to Manila) if she wants to but the problem is she might not be able to go back (to her clinic)," a co-worker of Maung told The STAR yesterday.

"She is a supporter of Myanmar political leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party. She has ultimately received the ire of the Myanmar military."

The award will be received on behalf of Maung by Dr. Junice Melgar, a member of Likhaan, a Philippine non-government organization that works with Maung and her clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand.

Maung and the other awardees, including Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., will each receive a $50,000 cash prize from the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund and the Ford Foundation.

Born to a Karen ethnic family in what was then Burma in 1957, Maung graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Rangoon.

Maung has been treating thousands of refugees and displaced persons along the Myanmar-Thai border for the past 14 years.

While practicing medicine in a Karen village in 1988, Maung and some students fled to Thailand after the Myanmar military launched a bloody crackdown.

After seeing them ill and traumatized, Maung started to treat many refugees at camps on the Myanmar-Thai border.

In the beginning, Maung used improvised medical instruments and solicited medicine from Catholic relief workers and nearby refugee camps.

Maung and her companions treated refugees suffering from malaria, respiratory disease and diarrhea, not to mention those who sustained shrapnel and gunshot wounds, and injuries from land mines.

Maung also trained health workers to assist in her Mae Sot clinic and to serve as "backpack medics" who could cross the border to Myanmar.

Undeterred, Maung expanded her clinic, and soon she had volunteers, doctors, nurses, and medical interns from abroad to help her treat the refugees.

Maung also tirelessly solicited help from relief agencies and NGOs which have responded to her call and helped her clinic grow year by year.

With five doctors and dozens of health workers and trainees, Maung’s clinic today provides comprehensive health services to 30,000 people every year.

Last year alone, 563 babies were born at Maung’s clinic and 700 patients received new eyeglasses.

"Sixty teams of Maung’s backpack medics continue to assist displaced villagers across the border and to support two field clinics in the war zone," read Maung’s biography.

"Maung also organized women’s organizations, youth programs, and other efforts to redress the corrosive social consequences of refugee life," it read.

In May 2000, three physicians from Likhaan went to Maung’s clinic to train in the counseling of trauma victims, which started the exchange program between the NGO and the Mae Sot clinic.

"Likhaan was involved in the health sector during the Marcos dictatorship and our founder, Inter Pares, thought our experience could help Dr. Cynthia’s group," Melgar said.

Three Likhaan trainers are set to leave next month for Mae Sot to conduct training on Adolescent and Health Development at Maung’s clinic.