A Man of Peace

Ramon Magsaysay awardee Howard Dee has given hope to communities ravaged by war, drought, poverty, hunger and ignorance.

On Friday, Aug. 31, Ambassador Howard Q. Dee will be conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award. It is a recognition that is very well-deserved and has been long in coming. Howard Dee is the most selfless person I have ever met, the true embodiment of loving service to God and country through justice, peace and development initiatives.

The RM Foundation recognized “his quietly heroic half-century of service to the Filipino people, his abiding dedication to the pursuit of social justice and peace in achieving dignity and progress for the poor.”

Established in 1957, the RM Awards celebrates the memory and leadership example of the late President Ramon Magsaysay who perished in an airplane crash that same year. It is given to “heroes of hope” in Asia who “move their societies forward through their unequivocal pursuit of the larger good.” The other awardees for 2018 are Youk Chhang from Cambodia, Maria de Lourdes Martins Cruz from East Timor, Bharat Vatwani from India, Sonam Wangchuk from India, and Vo Thi Hoang Yen from Vietnam.

Howard Dee from the Philippines has given hope to communities ravaged by war, drought, poverty, hunger and ignorance. His Assisi Development Foundation (ADF), established in 1975, was inspired by Pope Paul VI who wrote that “Development is the new name for peace” in his 1968 encyclical Populorum Progresso.  In 1998, ADF was the mover of Task Force Tabang Mindanaw assisting over 900,000 starving families during a long drought caused by El Niño. In 2001, Ambassador Dee was named special assistant to the president on the plight of indigenous peoples.  In 2015, on its 40th year, ADF had executed over 4,000 projects serving 12.5 million people in 2,500 communities with 314 partners in 78 provinces.

I first became aware of Ambassador Dee when he was appointed by his balae, President Cory Aquino (his son Dodo is married to Cory’s daughter Viel), as our ambassador to the Vatican.  No one who knows Howard Dee questioned the appointment of this man of deep faith to the Holy See. He was so at home in the center of Catholicism, so passionate about his advocacies and his devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, that Pope (now saint) John Paul II would refer to him as “Our Lady’s Ambassador”.

I met Ambassador Dee in 1992 when he was designated by President Fidel V. Ramos as chair of the government panel for the peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines. President Ramos was not wrong in choosing a prayerful development-oriented diplomat to commence the peace process with the then 24-year old communist insurgency.

Ambassador Dee was thorough, patient, kind and generous, a joy to work with. He listened, he argued, he considered all sides of an issue. As chair, he skillfully managed the different points of view of his panel members and the technical team of which I was a member. And he prayed. His faith was his most potent weapon.

One evening, after a long day where the panel and the technical team had argued passionately on several issues, a careless remark I made sparked an angry retort from a panel member. Ambassador Dee quickly stepped in, quietly sending the technical team home. But at another time, he diffused the tension by treating everyone out to a late Chinese dinner.

The talks with the Communist leaders were stressful. The issues were contentious and the other side was rude and insulting, calling our chair a “clerico-fascist” to his face, and belittling the qualifications of the other panel members. But Ambassador Dee persisted, in his patient, prayerful way. He even invited the CPP panel, which was headed by a priest, to prayer, which was met with silence.

In spite of the many side issues that arose in the course of the talks, he never lost sight of the reason for the peace negotiations: the longing of our people to end the armed conflict so they can live in peace and prosperity. In his opening statement at the start of the first formal talks in Brussels in June 1995, Ambassador Dee told the CPP panel: “Let us contend with one another, let us defend our interests to the best of our ability, but in the end, let us be willing to subordinate our position to the greater interests of the Filipino people.”

When the talks bogged down on the first day, he gave the technical team time off to explore nearby European cities until it was time to fly home.

As the talks wore on, interrupted by violence and other issues, he reminded the CPP, “If we are true peacemakers, we must pursue peace, not through violence, but by ways of peace.”

In 1999, at one of the many resumptions of the on-again, off-again peace process, he intimated to the CPP, “I was seriously considering, on the advice of friends, to give up — until I saw this picture of two NPA children — who could be my grandchildren — bearing arms, walking in camaraderie — and I made a vow, for their sake, and for the sake of my grandchildren — never to give up this pursuit of peace. May this be our common goal.”

But the road to peace was and continues to be rocky, often hardly navigable, and in July 1999, the CPP terminated the talks after the government ratified the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States. In his closing statement, Ambassador Dee said, “In this unfinished work, we are reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul, that God who began this good work in us will carry it on until it is finished is His appropriate time.”

The peace talks have continued ­—without much success — under other panels. But Ambassador Dee has never stopped believing. He continues to do God’s work quietly, without fanfare, with love and humility as he pursues the other path to peace — the epic struggle against poverty that engulfs 40 percent of our population, through ways of peace, justice and development.