SEOUL, 10 December 2016 ? Asia Society Korea conferred on Thursday, 9 December 2016 its 2016 Ambassador of the Year Award to Philippine Ambassador to Korea Raul S. Hernandez for his active involvement and support of the Society's objectives and contributions to Philippine-Korea relations and to the diplomatic community in Korea.

Asia Society Korea Center Honorary Chairman and former Prime Minister Dr. Hong-Koo Lee, and Asia Society board member and former Foreign Minister Dr. Sung-Joo Han handed a crystal Le-ogryph to Ambassador Hernandez at the End of Year Dinner at the Crystal Ballroom in Lotte Hotel Seoul as part of the Asia 21 Young Leaders Summit.

In his acceptance speech, Ambassador Hernandez thanked Asia Society for the "prestigious honor." He said: "I hope to have somehow contributed to your mission of deepening cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region in the areas of arts and culture, business, policy, and education."

He praised Asia Society for establishing its 11th center for cross-cultural understanding and collabo-ration between the East and the West in Seoul in 2008.

"The confluence of Seoul's rise as a new center of business, technology, culture, education, and logistics as well as my own country's emergence as a haven of economic stability has made my work to deepen our relations a lot easier," Ambassador Hernandez said.

The Award's former recipients include Indonesian Ambassador John Prasetio, Kuwait Ambassador Jasem Abudaiwi, Indian Ambassador Vishnu Prakash, and Australian Ambassador William Pater-son.

The dinner was attended by Chairman of Asia Society and Lotte Group Shin Dong-bin, Korea Center's corporate and individual members, Korea's corporate, cultural, media and civic leaders as well as three Filipino participants at this year's Asia 21 Young Leaders Summit held on 8-10 December: two members of 2016 class and one panel discussant.

Apart from Ambassador Hernandez, Philippine Honorary Consul General to Busan An Sang-wook was present at the dinner as sponsor to one of the participants from the Philippines.

Asia 21 Young Leaders' 2016 comprises 33 rising professionals from 24 countries in the Asia-Pacific region representing the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Clarissa Delgado, co-founder and chief executive officer, Teach for the Philippines, and Anna Meloto-Wilk, co-founder and presi-dent, Human Heart Nature, were Filipino members of the 2016 class.

Jo-ar Herrera, Chief of the Plans and Research Branch in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Education and Training, OG8, of the Philippine Army, was a panel member in the morning's first session entitled "Resilient Leadership at a Time of Uncertainty"

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