Magsaysay awardee absent but not silent.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

"A DEAD pig does not care about hot water" is a Chinese saying she loves to say. Often she is more direct: "What could they do to an old woman like me?"

Dr. Gao Yaojie, 76, is not afraid. Not of the Chinese authorities that have tried to keep her quiet and prevented her from traveling abroad; not of AIDS, the deadly disease that have ravaged much of the province of Henan; and definitely not of old age.

Gao is one of the seven winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2003. But the awardee for the public service category was not able to come for yesterday's ceremony because she could not get a passport. Two years ago, she also could not travel to the United States to receive the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights for the same reason. Gao has, in fact, never left China in all her life.

Recently, she mailed to her representative a tape with her message for the award-giving body. It arrived with its contents all erased.

Gao, a gynecologist, has been at the forefront of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) prevention in China through a massive information and health care campaign, particularly in Henan province where she discovered the disease spreading in epidemic proportions because of wanton and unregulated buy-and-sell of blood and blood plasma. This situation was abetted by ignorance on the part of the poor, and greed on the part of government officials, blood traders, blood banks and pharmaceutical companies.