The fight for what's right.

The Ministry of Health's drug procurement irregularities. The quest to assemble 50,000 citizens to impeach the relevant minister. The successful bid to stop the listing of the Electricity Generating Au thority of Thailand (EGAT) on the stock market as part of the government's plan to privatize the national utility monopoly days before the distribution of its IPO. And most recently, the attempt to ask the Administrative Court to revoke the royal decree on the February 24 House dissolution and get Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to resign in order to break the political deadlock. Among these important landmarks in the country's social and political progress, one woman has always been there, giving her brains, ability and energy to move the feeble civil society out of its dark corner and to make it matter in the competitive policy-making arena.

Rosana Tositrakul started out as a health activist more than 20 years ago. She currently holds the position of secretary-general of the Thai Holistic Health Foundation. Through the years, however, the be-spectacled woman, whose earth-toned cotton attire and iron will have become well known, has branched out from campaigning for the use of herbs for self-reliance, to organic food, Buddhist-based peaceful resistance to injustice and rallying against corruption.

"When we decide to fight, we never worry about winning or losing. See if it's the right thing to do. If it's right and just, go for it and give it everything you have."

The drug scandal occurred after the economic bubble burst (in 1997). Once the government, at that time, managed to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund, it could inject new money into every ministry. The corruption began at that time in 1998. The Rural Doctors society (RDS) and the Rural Pharmacists Society (RPS) suspected corruption because they had to buy drugs from certain companies at inflated prices. They tried to expose it, but couldn't do much because their supervisors tried to suppress their attempts. So they asked for help from us, non-governmental organizations.

The 1997 Constitution had just been promulgated at that time, which allowed 50,000 concerned citizens to petition the National Counter-Corruption Committee (NCCC) to investigate corrupt politicians. The drug procurement scam was the first time this mechanism was used. The pressure was enormous. After five days--we hadn't yet gathered 50,000 names--the then health minister Rakkiat Sukthana quit. Ten days after that his deputy minister quit. Everyone thought it was over.

I said, not yet, I hadn't got up to 50,000 names. I wanted to know how the mechanism worked. I managed to gather them, but the senate chairman refused to forward the list to the NCCC.

We fought on by filing an "unusually rich" charge against the minister with the NCCC, which did an investigation and found that there was 233.8 million baht in his account that Rakkiat could not convincingly explain, of which 5 million was alleged bribery. Rakkiat was sentenced to 15 years in jail and the 233.8 million baht was seized.

This was the first case in which civic groups censured a politician.

There were calls threatening me and harassing me every day during the drug scam campaign. I was sued six times, four by former minister Rakkiat, one by the [Ministry of Health]'s permanent secretary and the other by the deputy minister. I won them all.

I accidentally stumbled into the drug scam campaign, but when it came to Egat privatization, I intentionally walked into and involved myself with it. I was very disturbed for I felt that a national asset was being trampled on in a secretive, non-transparent way.

Credit is due to Khun Kanin Boonsuwan who suggested that we petition the Administrative Court to revoke the two royal decrees to privatize Egat on the grounds that they would cancel out the public enterprise bills. Legally the government could not do that as a royal decree is issued by the government while a bill must go through parliament. The royal decrees are in violation of public rights. The government is seeking to change the status of Egat in order to sell it.

One day before Egat's IPO was due for distribution, the Court ruled to suspend it. It was a happy day for all of us. People called in to tell me that they felt that "Thailand has become a better place." The administrative Court received high regard too.

When we sent our petition to the Administrative Court, some friends asked me why I would want to do that. The privatization was very much a done deal, and there was no use protesting against it. I told them that a civic movement like ours doesn't have a high cost of operation. As long as there was room for us to do something, anything, to move forward, we shouldn't stop.

WANCHAI TANTIWITHA YAPITAK, Bangkok Post Outlook, Wednesday March 8th, 2006. Summarized by FFW.