Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan

Manila Standard Today

January 24, 2011 January, the first month of the Gregorian calendar, is named after Janus, a Roman deity that symbolized beginnings.  His two-faced head in a Roman coin looks to the past and at the same time faces the future, reminding us that the past is connected with the present and the future.  This connectedness is substantiated in our salawikain that says, Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa kanyang pinangalingan ay hindi makarating sa kanyang paruruunan. By doing a retrospect-prospect exercise, many of us end up with our new year resolutions.

The Past as Driver

The word retrospect contains ‘retro’ which signifies  the notion of something old; pejoratively interpreted as traditional but positively translated as something classical. Retrospection implies a review of past events and revisits historical precedents.  The word prospect means looking forward in anticipation. It suggests a vision or a goal, an expectation of a particular event, or condition.  When we do retrospection and prospecting, we become present to ourselves and the world around us; we stand in the middle of our past and future.  It helps us discover our sustainable self anchored to our beginning in a distant past and we project ourselves to what lies ahead.





Historians consider the past as driver of the present and the future; Cartesian mathematicians use statistical retrogression to estimate and predict future events; Pavlovian behaviorists establish patterns to program and anticipate mechanistic actions; and strategic gurus use previous performance to accomplish corporate mission and vision.  All these demonstrate the relationship between retrospect and prospect, visually represented by Janus who looks at the past and at the same time faces the future.

Unpredictability and Chaos
However, the notion that the past invariably determines the future is being challenged by Chaos Theory advocates. They believe that our experiences of the laws of nature show subtle relationships between simple and complex events and between order and disorder [randomness]; the universe that obeys basic physical laws is capable of disorder and unpredictability; and it shows there is a limit to understanding and predicting the future. For example, linear logic would view World I and World II as predictors of World War III and Edsa I and Edsa II as predictor of Edsa III [which almost happened].  This is so because predictability is a rare phenomenon that operates within the constraints that classical science has culled from a variety of complex events.

Chaos theoricians debunk the assumption of ‘perfect competition’ in neo-classical economics which considers output as doubled if the input [capital and labor] is doubled.  Thus, firms are able to make bigger profits by ‘simultaneously raising their output, lowering costs and reducing prices’.  With nonlinear systems in operations,  multiple inputs and complex feedback loops, chaos advocates believe this classical assumption no longer applies.

They consider the modern ‘scientific management’ of Frederick W. Taylor (1911), an engineer who drove production through industrial efficiency, outdated.  With high technology precision up to a nano second in production, employees trained in multi-tasking and innovative work scheduling, Taylorism has likewise been debunked.

Strategic planning which was started by the Harvard Business School in the 60s continues to be a regular corporate exercise. This highlights the importance of integrating production, accounting, and marketing approach to an overall strategy.  But critics say experience has shown that highly mechanistic plans and forecasts do not always work.  Doing these, in Simon Forge’s metaphor, is like ‘driving using the rearview mirror.’  In response, Massachusetts Institute of Technology introduced system dynamics.

Christine Page, MD, a doctor of surgery and member of the Royal College of medical practitioner, resists a “statistical prognosis” that 80 percent of people die with a certain disease within two years without addressing the health of the other 20 percent.  She asserts that even in medical science there is unpredictability. A patient’s case need not be in the 80 percent of the statistical bell curve; and therefore is an exception to the general prognostic rule.

The Past and the Future
Chaos theoricians make us aware of disorder and random events are present in our lives, our communities, our nation, our world and our universe.  But they tell us that disorder is not a deterministic pattern that must always predictably happen again.  Randomness of events is what gives us hope, knowing that the cyclic pattern of disorder and chaos need not happen again.

In retrospect, the lessons from three examples I mentioned in economics, business, medicine and politics do not underline disorder or discontinuity; they rather underscore progress culled from the past, which provides substance for making new prospects.

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Lasallian Centennial 2011 is the centennial of De La Salle presence in the Philippines.  My next three columns [February-April] will be on Lasallian social responsibility.  The series will highlight the pioneering Filipino and American Brothers and their lay-partners who established what is known today as Lasallian education.  In 2005, my paper on Lasallian responsibility was done at the behest of my doctoral adviser Br. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC. His own writings reflect a Janus perspective.  With J.M. Luz and M.H. Tirol, he authored in 1984 The De La Salle Mission Statement: Retrospect and Prospect. He wrote in 2002 An Unfinished Symphony: 934 Days at DECS; in 1986, Portraits and Sketches: De La Salle Directors and Presidents,; with Dr. Rosa Guevarra, AFSC in 1978, Inspiring the Christian Academic Community: Selected Writings of Br. H. Gabriel Connon, FSC, and with A.T. Reyes in 1980, The Connon Years 1966-1980.  His prospect for the future of Catholics is: Towards an Adult Faith (2000) and God-Talk: Renewing Language about God in the Roman Catholic Tradition (2006).

Published at Business Mirror

Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan Business Management Dept. College of Business

December 8, 2010 Publication c/o MJ Mapoy Office of the Vice-Dean, Graduate School Final edition November 27, 2010

Advent is a time to prepare for Christmas.  The four weeks before Christmas are liturgically designed to make us yearn for the coming of Jesus.  A time to yearn for Someone who will fill us to the brim, make us understand what cannot be fully comprehended, and infuse the joy of experiencing what is new and refreshing.  That Someone is Jesus who, in catechetical hermeneutics, is ‘the fullness’ of our humanity.  Each advent candle reminds us to await the coming of a human model in the person of Jesus.

In anticipation of Christmas, festive lights along Ayala Avenue bring delight to the eyes and evoke in us a feeling of glee. Their sparkling and dripping movements simulate the stars and comets of a classic backdrop of the nativity of Jesus.  Thus, cities, towns, barangays, and homes have Christmas lights because it is a season to be jolly, a season of plenty, and a season to celebrate.  A sense of entitlement is in the air.  After all, if one underwent deprivation for eleven months, isn’t that person entitled to an experience of abundance at least once a year?  To dispel darkness and sadness, we must have Christmas lights and a feast of gastronomical delights.The Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the festival of lights in December.  Hanukkah may as well be a prelude to our celebration of Christmas. The celebration of Hanukkah includes the lighting of the Menorah (a candelabra with nine receptacles for oil) which, according to Webster, recalls “the story that a one-day supply of oil burned miraculously in the Temple for eight days”.   Hanukkah begins on the 25^th day of Kislev [December 2, 2010] and during this time candles are lit and children play games and receive gifts.  The light has become a metaphor for facing life with joy, fun, and abundance with childlike abandon.

Last November 16^th the Philippine government declared the celebration of Eid’l Adha as national holiday. Eid’l Adha honors Ibrahim who is father of not only of Muslim, but also of Jewish and Christian faith.  To some global and ecumenical advocates, the light which was revealed to Mohammed in Mecca, to Moses in Mt. Sinai, and to Jesus at the River Jordan came from Above. 

Thus, the significance of the Eid’l Adha is not only a national recognition of this Muslim feast but an initiative to bring unity, and hopefully peace, in a country that is majority Christian with minority Muslim.  When traced historically and theologically, unity of both sectors points towards harmony under one highest Being.  Marinoff, a socio-political writer, observes that there is an intimate parallelism between Muslim and Christian religion is found in the One God, One Prophet, and One Book formula. Muslims have Allah, Mohammed, the Koran; Christians have God, Jesus, and the Bible. Similarly, Muslims and Christians alike “bathe regularly in the light of truth.”

Does ‘bathing in the light of truth’ make us an enlightened body? Einstein may provide us an insight. The physical stimuli to our senses trigger in our brain messages that are relayed to our nerves that ultimately warm our hearts and enlighten our minds.  In Einstein’s equation, energy [our heart set on fire] is a function of mass [physical body] and light [non-physical or above the physical] present in us.  Similar concept is found at the prayer garden of Don Bosco Chapel in Makati where a devotee who lights a votive candle is reminded that “the little light” is the little light of one’s heart and of one’s self that brings about enlightenment.

But many of us this season are most likely focused on the physical aspect of energy and excitement through coveted gifts and Christmas glitters.  An accounting of the pesos spent on material [physical] goods would most likely outweigh what we spend for meta-physical [nonmaterial] activities. Easily, our Christmas bottom line would be more bodily weight with depleted bank account.

Come New Year, we do our balance sheet by making another accounting.  Indeed, we do spend a lot of energy to further develop our physical assets; I suggest we also take stock of our spiritual assets and liabilities.  It is at this level that we begin our journey into the light [delight?].  Enlightened by the year past, we will be ready and energized to move forward.  Einstein metaphysically assures us that our body [mass] generates power [energy] in proportion to our light.  Christmas light is not about external glitters and twinkles; it is about Jesus who is the Light of our micro and macro world.

In our enlightened state we may begin to see Jesus who came from above [heavenly, metaphysically, divinely] as model of our humanity.  Could it be that our being Christian is fulfilled in our being truly human?  Could it be that there is more fellowship [communion] on a Friday night at a bistro than on a Sunday morning in church?  Could it be that the Catholic seven sacraments, the Hindu seven chakras and the Jewish Kabbalah are all the same dimensions of God present in our humanity?  Christmas is a time to be enlightened that the Judeo, Christian and Muslim traditions came from one father named Abraham [Ibrahim].

Our journey to enlightenment, spurred by the birth of Jesus, beckons us to continue to explore the meaning of our humanity and the fullness of that humanity to truly experience global and universal brotherhood [personhood] under One Father.

Published at: The Manila Standard Today 

August 30, 2010 Issue

Proposed House Bill 834 motivates senior citizens to live a hundred. This bill also will honor, grant benefits and privileges to Filipino centenarians by declaring September 25 as National Respect of Centenarian Day. Indeed we must honor our centenarians because even when they were retired early and permanently retired, in many institutions, at the age 70,  they continue to peak and remain productive. There are many evidence that septuagenarians, octogenarians and nonagenarians show the way to non-retirement.  I know of three senior citizens who are productive members of society, heading towards their centenary.

Septuagenarian Civil Engineer
Br. Crisanto Moreno FSC is 75 years old and is the oldest living Filipino De La Salle Brother in the Philippines. 

Though he is retired he continues to be active in the service of the De La Salle University by signing checks and looking after the many buildings of the De La Salle Philippine schools, the construction of which  he supervised years ago.  He also continues to practice his profession as consultant to non-De La Salle Schools.  From his consultancies, he has set up an educational fund for the education of the young Brothers in the Philippines. I take this to mean that he is ‘fathering’ the young Brothers as a matter of legacy.In 2009, he was recognized by La Salle Greenhills for his architectural concept and design and engineer-n-charge of the St. Benilde gymnasium, a landmark likened to Araneta Coleseum in Cubao and a historic site of Namfrel that led to EDSA I, and more recently the wake of President Cory Aquino.  Born in Oton, Iloilo, Br. Cris has a sister who is with the Daughter of St.

Paul de Chatres. She and her other siblings are managing the Maria Mediodia Moreno Foundation, a channel of the Moreno Christian charity and social responsibility.

Octagenarian Pre-school Supervisor
Eugenia ‘Gene’ Agravante is an 81 year-old supervisor of San Antonio Community School at Singalong. She travels everyday from Antipolo to Manila to be with the nursery teachers Alma A. del Mar, Gina D. Ferreras, and Cynthia D. Batungbakal who teach some 300 pupils.

According to Gene, she got involved with the nursery school in 1998 as a social worker of St. Scholastica’s College, as catechist and a natural family planning advocate of St. Anthony parish church.  The San Antonio Community school was founded in 1973 by Sr. Francoise of St. Paul  was later turned over to St. Scholastica’s College. The school then had a feeding program, catechetical program and Rosary circle with Bible study.  Later, she broke the ‘culture of silence’ by actively teaching human rights based on biblical principles.  Today, Gene ‘dreams’ of being lawyer, defending the poor and the oppressed.

Nonagenerian Directess
Mamang Luz, my mother, is 94 years old and she is the directress Haven’s Learning School, Bacolod City. On schooldays she stands at the gate of Haven to say “Good morning” to the pre-schoolers.

Once they are settled down with their teachers, she goes back to her room to rest; by noontime she stands again by the gate to say goodbye. Two pre-school teachers and a registrar-administrator (my sister Jo) help her manage the school she founded in 1993.  Jo tells me that she observes her teachers and she sometimes takes over the class to demonstrate her time-tested teaching methods.

An ETC graduate (elementary teacher’s certificate), and later a master’s of arts in teaching agriculture (MATEA), she retired from the public school with a rank of Principal 3.  Her love for learning and  passion for teaching  inspired me to follow her profession.  At her school I witnessed her closeness to her faculty – at  meal time and in time of personal and professional crises.  Above all, I saw how their dedication as educators.  The love and care they have for their pupils and the empathy for the parents.

My mom comes from a strong bloodline of feminine DNA: her mom, Lola  Profetessa “Tesang” Clavel vda. De Torrecarion, who named me after her husband, Emiliano, died at the age of 88 and my moms’s grandmother, Lola Putot,  “Shortie” Rodregaso died at the age of 101.  Her teaching profession has connected me to the babaylan DNA of old.

Conclusion
In the Philippines, most corporations and educational institutions would no longer entertain professional who reach their ‘peak retirement’ at 70.  However, it is a fact that there are septuagenarians, octogenarians, and nonagenarians who are productive senior citizens.  It might be worth looking at the Singaporean model which encourages and provides employment opportunities for their senior citizens, so that they do not burden the State by being productive citizens.

As our nation matures, it is gratifying to note that senior citizens whose lifetime contribution is being recognized by the Philippine government through the proposed  HB 834 and business establishment through acts of kindness.

To the senior citizens and service providers of senior citizens, may they all Live a Hundred!

 Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan

Manila Times March 18 and 25, 2008

I learned my ABC in a public elementary school more than five decades ago, and the English alphabets helped me understand the world around me.  While on a Christmas holiday, I found myself relearning the ABCs of the world’s great teachers: Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius and Christ.  I was reintroduced to Aristotle at the National Museum of Singapore. Buddha appeared in my conversation with a taxi driver at Changi airport.  Over lunch and coffee, I heard my daughter’s foster mother talk about the teachings of Confucius. At the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd I greeted baby Christ in a Belen on His birthday. This happened because I intentionally shed my role as a professor while on vacation, allowing many experiences coming my way to teach and guide me. Like a student mastering the letters of the alphabet, I revisited the wisdom of the ABCs – Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius and Christ – of yesteryears in search for peace and harmony in a world that has gone into extremes.

A. Aristotle at the National Museum of Singapore.  On New Year’s Day I found it hard to resist the invitation of the National Museum to its Grecian exhibits.  My wife and I were treated to a free viewing of 130 pieces of artifact: sculptures, figures, reliefs, vases, and jewelry in the Classical Period (5^th to 4^th Century BCE) of Greece. For the first time I came face to face with the life-size bust of Aristotle, Socrates and Plato.  I recalled how these great thinkers shaped not only the Grecian civilization but also that of the entire Western hemisphere.  They became an inspiration to the European Renaissance, Enlightenment and modern science.

I single out Aristotle more for his logic taught to me by Prof. Ariston Estrada at De La Salle Manila. His influence on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica pointed out to me by Br. John Burns FSC in my Scholastic years.  Above all, his idea of the golden mean and the importance of virtue (staying on the balance, without going into extremes) were impressed upon me by the Christian Brothers throughout my Lasallian formation.

Lou Marinoff in his book, The Middle Way, suggests that Aristotle’s ethical and philosophical thoughts are most needed today in a world that has gone into extremes.  Today, the absence of ‘virtue’ is so pronounced.  We are pushed to extreme TV excitement (Fear Factor, XGames, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Ultimate Guinness World Record, etc), extreme medical intervention (cloning, beauty enhancement, DNA testing, stem cells), extreme politics (people power, assassination, corruption and manipulation) and extreme religion (fundamentalism, cult and terrorism) to name a few.

After walking through the Grecian cultural exhibit of Singapore museum, I felt a secret longing to live in Ancient Greece and enjoy the freedom of the men of Athens in a city state. Singapore, a modern city-state, appears to be Athens of today, providing its citizens [and visitors like me] a life of socio-political stability, of flourishing arts and culture, and of economic prosperity. Even for a short respite this holiday season, Singapore has allowed me to experience the peace and quiet my spirit has been longing for while staying at a suburban high-rise residence of my daughter in Newton Suites.

B. Buddha and the Diamond Cutter.  As soon as I sat at the front seat of a Changi airport taxi, I knew at once something was different with our driver.  A butch haircut and a chest fully expanded told me our Singaporean driver was not male.  Momentarily, my memory flashed back to Munich 30 years ago. There, I first met one such buxomly driver who nonchalantly picked up my heavy suitcase and effortlessly stuffed it at the back of a Mercedes Benz taxi. Very distant and formal, she drove me to the airport.  But my Asian driver was a lot friendlier and she exchanged pleasantries with me.  Having introduced myself as a university professor teaching business ethics she surprised me when she recommended a book, The Diamond Cutter. Borders bookstore at Wheelock’s Place did yield the diamond but Kinokuniya at Takashimaya on Orchard Road gave me the treasure I was looking for.

After my wife reviewed Geshe Michael Roach’s The Diamond Cutter, she cited Lama Surya Das’ Awakening the Buddha Within as an introduction to the personal account of Roach’s application of Buddha wisdom [sayings] in a million dollar diamond business he founded in New York. Roach tells his reader to put Buddha at the center of one’s personal life and one’s business concern.  For him, the creation of wealth begins with a full discipline of the mind that requires meditation and attention to the minute details of perfecting business procedures and operations in a highly delicate business like buying and selling diamonds.  For social responsibility, he says, “At its peak then the generosity reaches a place where you are seriously investing all…because you have consciously readjusted the borders of ‘me’ to include all of ‘them,’ and you are, basically, just taking care of a (much) bigger ‘me’ now.” In search for life’s meaning, he continues, “The person who has the best chance of truly being generous to others is a person who has figured out the biggest secret of life – the biggest source of happiness; a person who has figured out that just working for a single ‘me,’ a single mouth and a single stomach, is profoundly boring, uninspiring, and false to our whole human nature.”

Buddha himself maintained that the secret of each person’s complete fulfillment lies within, and is not dependent on any supernatural power or future life.  He taught that each one holds the key to personal redemption, salvation, guidance, and liberation.

What is Buddha’s path to virtue?  It is not, as many Westerners and non-Buddhist think.  Virtue is not a weak or ‘middle-of-the-road” compromise.  According to Daisaku Ikeda, the essence of virtue or middle way is “reverence for the sanctity of life—one’s own life, the lives of other people, the life of non-human and all its extensive and intricate interrelations—coupled with the determination to make this reverence the basis for all one’s actions…when the value of human dignity and life is accorded this kind of centrality, there can be no question of compromise or accommodation with forces of destruction and divisiveness than would threaten life or undermine our humanity.”

C. Confucius at Wheelock’s Place and Novena Velocity.  The foster mother of our daughter, while on fellowship at the National University of Singapore in 2001, has become an endearing friend of our family to this day.  This Christmas she treated my wife and I to lunch at Wheelock’s Place and coffee at the Novena Velocity Mall to update our respective journeys in life.  From our conversation, I gathered some images of her devotion and dedication to her aging parents.  Without fail, she visits her mom and dad at least once a week and makes sure she celebrates important events like New Year, Christmas and special family occasions.

Confucius has had a profound influence on Chinese, Korean, and Japanese philosophy.  According to Hyun Hochsmann, his influence is even greater than Aristotle’s prodigious influence on the West. From The Book of Odes, Confucius believed that loving one’s fellowman is a central virtue of Confucian ethics. From The Book of History, he taught his followers to venerate ancestry and to honor ones parents. Today, the influence of Confucius among the Chinese Singaporeans is quietly pervasive not only with the foster mother of our daughter, but also among those I talked to like the taxi drivers, mall sales clerks and fast food service providers.

C Again. Christ Jesus at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd.  On December 30^th, Feast of the Holy Family, my wife and I decided to visit new born Jesus at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd.  There, we were treated to a sung mass rendered by the choir of the Risen Christ under the direction of Sir Peter Low, Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory.  The songs were a ‘halo-halo’ of Gregorian chants (kyrie, sanctus, agnus dei and pater noster) and traditional classics: entrance (All Are Welcome), offertory (Carol at the Bethlehem Cave) and Communion (Once in Royal City of David).  The celebration ended with a triumphant blast of the French horns and rumblings of the kettle drums that signal the recessional singing of Joy to the World composed and arranged by Isaac Watts and George F. Handel respectively.

A little Asian girl who was slumped all through the mass straightened up and told her mom, “I am awake.” My wife interpreted this as “the awakening of Buddha within.”  These statement could very well have been the congregation’s grand finale: Our hearts are filled with joy, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ who came to redeem us.  In Buddhist terms, this Christian revelation comes as true Enlightenment from within.

In closing, my holiday would have been a mere Christmassy walk at the malls along Orchard Road filled with decors and glittering lights. But I regained my Pasko sa Pinas feeling by attending mass with our many kababayans at the Novena Church and the traditional sung mass at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd made it Christ’s mass for me. Little Philippines came to life when occasionally we were greeted by our kababayans serving and cooking in restaurants, welcoming us at novelty shops and attending to our grocery needs.  These acquaintances brought us closer to a Pinoy Christmas in Singapore.

With Marinoff, I exhort those who are making their New Year resolution to: Be the Aristotelian in our unrelenting commitment to improving our mind.  Be Buddhist in our unstinting effort to deepen our compassionate heart.  Be Confucian in our unselfish devotion to serve our kinfolks and fellow beings.

May I add as an Asian Catholic: Be Christian by loving God with all our heart as we love your neighbor.  Rooted within us are the natural and spiritual keys of the East and West meant for the betterment of the human condition; we wield awesome natural and supra-natural powers to make a difference for the true, the good and the beautiful.  Let us then revisit, renew and relearn our ABCs from Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius and Christ whose basic and primary concern for humanity have made us human and continue to invite to be fully human in a world that has gone into extremes.