Igorot leader, 1st Filipina receives Gwangju Prize for Human Rights | Igorotage

Joanna Kintanar Cariño was awarded the 2019 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights on May 18 in Gwangju, South Korea. Carino, a longtime activist is the first Filipina to receive the award, according to the May 18 Memorial Foundation. “This is a vindication of my lifelong vocation to defend and promote democracy and human rights,” said Cariño in her speech during the awarding ceremony. It is ironic, she said, that while President Duterte’s government labels human rights activists as terrorists, prestigious foreign institutions such as the “May 18 Memorial Foundation recognizes her human rights activism as honorable.” Cariño was listed along with 600 others in the Department of Justice’s so-called terror list which seeks to proscribe the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army as terrorist organizations. It was in January this year that their names were dropped from the list after they fought for its removal. Last April, the May 18 Memorial Foundation announced that Cariño bagged this year’s Gwangju Prize for Human Rights due to her longtime commitment to human rights work in the Philippines.

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