The Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor () is the highest award bestowed by the Mexican Senate.
It forms part of the Mexican Honors System and is currently Mexico's highest active award since there are no records of the Condecoración "Miguel Hidalgo" being presented since 1979. The award has been given every year since 1954 by the Senate of Mexico to eminent Mexicans with a distinguished lifetime career who contributed most "toward the welfare of the Nation and mankind".
Only Mexican entities representing "the cultural spirit of the time" are allowed to submit nominations for this award. This provision typically allows universities, newspapers, learned societies, non-governmental organizations and government entities to nominate candidates.
Background
The award is named after politician Belisario Domínguez (1863–1913). Domínguez was a Senator for the state of Chiapas at the time of the Mexican Revolution. After Victoriano Huerta's coup d'état, which ousted President Francisco I. Madero, Domínguez circulated a speech as a letter to fellow members of congress in which he denounced Huerta's actions and encouraged Congress to depose him. At the end of his letter he also encouraged readers to make copies of it and distribute them around the country. The speech was not taken well in Huerta's circles and Domínguez was assassinated a few days later, on October 7, 1913.
In 1953, President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines signed the decree establishing the award in remembrance of this "martyr of democracy". That same year the Senate decided to bestow the first medal on the bust of Belisario Domínguez that already existed in the Senate Chamber as a symbolic act. It is for this reason that the medal was awarded twice in 1954.
Description The medal consists of a single class and is awarded to a single recipient during a solemn ceremony in the Senate Chamber on October 7. A gold medal hanging from a silk ribbon with the colors of the Mexican flag is given together with a diploma signed by the President of the Republic and the leader of the Senate.
The medal has the national coat of arms on one side together with the inscription ("United Mexican States, Honourable Chamber of Senators 1952–1958"). The reverse side of the medal has an image of Domínguez' bust together with the inscription ("Ennobled the Nation, October 7, 1913").
Recipients The following is a complete list of people who have been recipients of the Belisario Domínguez Medal. Only in 1954 and 2021 the medal has been awarded twice.
1954 – Rosaura Zapata and Erasmo Castellanos Quinto 1955 – Esteban Baca Calderón 1956 – Gerardo Murillo, "Dr. Atl" 1957 – Roque Estrada Reynoso 1958 – Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama 1959 – Heriberto Jara Corona 1960 – Isidro Fabela 1961 – José Inocente Lugo 1962 – María Tereza Montoya 1963 – María Hernández Zarco 1964 – Adrián Aguirre Benavides 1965 – Plácido Cruz Ríos 1966 – Ramón F. Iturbe 1967 – Francisco L. Urquizo 1968 – Miguel Angel Cevallos 1969 – María Cámara Vales, widow of Pino Suárez, Francisco I. Madero's vice president 1970 – Rosendo Salazar 1971 – Jaime Torres Bodet 1972 – Ignacio Ramos Praslow 1973 – Pablo E. Macías Valenzuela 1974 – Rafael de la Colina Riquelme 1975 – Ignacio Chávez Sánchez 1976 – Jesús Romero Flores 1977 – Juan de Dios Bátiz Peredes 1978 – Gustavo Baz Prada 1979 – Fidel Velázquez Sánchez 1980 – Luis Padilla Nervo 1981 – Luis Alvarez Barret 1982 – Gen. Raúl Madero González 1983 – Jesús Silva Herzog 1984 – Salomón González Blanco 1985 – María Lavalle Urbina 1986 – Salvador Zubirán 1987 – Eduardo García Maynez 1988 – Rufino Tamayo 1989 – Raúl Castellano Jiménez 1990 – Andrés Serra Rojas 1991 – Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán 1992 – Ramón G. Bonfil 1993 – Andrés Henestrosa Morales 1994 – Jaime Sabines Gutiérrez 1995 – Miguel León-Portilla 1996 – Griselda Álvarez Ponce de León 1997 – Heberto Castillo Martínez 1998 – José Angel Conchello Dávila (posthumous) 1999 – Carlos Fuentes 2000 – Leopoldo Zea Aguilar 2001 – José Ezequiel Iturriaga Sauco 2002 – Héctor Fix Zamudio 2003 – Luis González y González 2004 – Carlos Canseco González 2005 – Gilberto Borja Navarrete 2006 – Jesús Kumate Rodríguez 2007 – Carlos Castillo Peraza (posthumous) 2008 – Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa 2009 – Antonio Ortiz Mena (posthumous) 2010 – Javier Barros Sierra (posthumous) 2010 – Luis H. Álvarez 2011 – Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano 2012 – Ernesto de la Peña (posthumous) 2013 – Manuel Gómez Morín (posthumous) 2014 – Eraclio Zepeda 2015 – Alberto Bailleres 2016 – (posthumous) 2017 – Julia Carabias Lillo 2018 – Carlos Payán 2019 – Rosario Ibarra de Piedra 2020 – Personnel of the National Health System on the occasion of the COVID-19 pandemic 2021 – Manuel Velasco Suárez (posthumous) and Ifigenia Martínez Hernández 2022 – Elena Poniatowska 2023 –
See also Condecoración Miguel Hidalgo Orders, decorations, and medals of Mexico
References
Senado de la República (2005). Senado de la República – Medalla Belisario Domínguez. Retrieved November 20, 2005. Senado de la República. Reglamento de la Medalla de Honor Belisario Domínguez. Diario Oficial de la Federación, December 12, 1953. Senado de la República. Decreto por el cual se crea la Medalla de Honor “Belisario Domínguez” del Senado de la República, January 3, 1953 Jeffrey Kent Lucas. The Rightward Drift of Mexico's Former Revolutionaries: The Case of Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama. Lewiston, NY, USA: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010.