Last trimester, I taught business organization to two sections of freshman at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business of DLSU. The course was an introduction to the management process of planning, leading, organizing and controlling. And for research, I assigned them to explore “the world of business in the face of an entrepreneur.” This is my financial version of William Blake’s metaphysical dictum “to see the world in a grain of sand.” Based on their interviews, the next three articles in this column will feature three entrepreneurs of Agno Street, Malate: 1) Fernando Funes who was interviewed by the Team Derick Flores and Team Iñigo De La Torre; 2) Noel Urbina, by Team Karina Albert and Team Gerard Khoo and 3) Emma Banico by Team Ellen Ong.

Freshmen then and nowI was a freshman 50 years ago at De La Salle College, Manila where I pursued a double-degree (liberal arts and education) program. The program, similar to Lia-Com (liberal art and commerce), was an innovation of Br. Gabriel Connon, FSC and Dean Waldo Perfecto to form ‘professional Christian gentlemen.’ Today, DLSU continues to offer double-degree programs, which combine liberal arts with other behavioral and technical courses.

Last year, I found myself teaching 40 young men and women. At once, I recognized we were worlds apart—some came to class in jeans, in shorts, in T-shirts, in rubber shoes and in flip flops [slippers]. In my time, De La Salle was an all-boys institution and entering the North Gate meant being dressed in shirt and tie. Leading by example was Ariston Estrada, our logic and philosophy professor, whose professional dress code was coat and tie all the time, rain or shine.

As I did PowerPoint presentations in class, most of my students hardly took down notes. But once in a while some would say, ‘Excuse me, Sir.’ They asked me to step aside and with a digital notepad or cellphone snapped a picture of my lecture. Others were looking at their laptops, and I was not too sure if they were taking notes or Googling the veracity of what I was saying or simply browsing over their Facebook account. And there were those passive observers, not even listeners, during the whole period of one hour and a half. However, before leaving the classroom, with USB on hand, they would request me for a softcopy of my lecture.

In my time, lectures were captured manually using a paper notebook and a fountain pen [Parker, Schaeffer and Easterbrook were very reliable instruments] and no one dared to interrupt a professor while he pontificates on a subject. No one dared to ask a professor for his notes, much more his lesson plan. For research, we went to the library. Today, students use the Internet in the classroom, in the library, along the corridor, and from a cellphone to do their homework.

The cut-and-paste reports and term papers with incoherent English grammar bespeak of the power of technology and the decline of scholarly rigor among some students. As always, I keep repeating the mantra of ‘academic integrity and respect for intellectual property.’ I ask them to cite sources and follow the American Psychological Association style of referencing [no longer Campbell format or Turabian footnotes during my college years].

But the bright side of learning today is that a freshman who takes as much as 21 units is gung ho with out-of-the classroom research work. And this is how I got them to interview and learn from the ‘street entrepreneurs’ of Agno.

DLSU at Agno

Agno is Fidel A. Reyes St. The narrow street of Agno begins from Quirino Avenue and northward, parallel to Taft Avenue. It goes all the way to the corner of Castro St. This stretch is a DLSU strip. There is the DLSU-College of St. Benilde preparatory school near Quirino Avenue; De La Salle Retreat House at the corner of Estrella St., and the Razon Sports Complex. At the corner of Balinguit St. is the Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC Hall and De La Salle Engineering Building is near Castro Street. Agno’s deadend leads to De La Salle Gokongwei Building and the back entrance to De La Salle University’s main campus.

The target markets of the street entrepreneurs along Agno are the residents themselves and the students of De La Salle University. There is a flourishing business of pay parking at ‘The Sand’ in Banico compound and still another managed by the barangay boys along Agno St. itself. There are a number of food stalls and two entrepreneurs will be featured in this column. And the only one tricycle transport service will also be highlighted in this column.

Entrepreneurial resilience

There are government structures that encourage and support entrepreneurs: 1) The Magna Carta for Small Enterprises, Republic Act (RA 6977), which was recently amended as Magna Carta for Micro, Small, 2) The Medium Enterprises (RA 8501), Republic Act No. 9178 known as Barangay Micro Business Enterprises Act of 2002, which encouraged the formation and growth of barangay micro business enterprises, and 3) The Small Enterprises Technology Upgrading Program of the Science Department for increased productivity and reduced production.

Apparently, the Agno entrepreneurs did not avail of government services to start their business. In some cases, they rely on ‘Bombay financing’ to keep their daily operation going. The three entrepreneurs who were interviewed by DLSU freshmen researchers were all self-funded.

Next month, I will tell the success story of Fernando Funes who, from one pedicab, eventually acquired a fleet of 40 that plies along Quirino Avenue, Adriatico St., Vito Cruz St. and Taft Avenu

(Published in the Manila Standard Today newspaper on 2012/january/30.)

Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan, AB, BSE, MA, EdD
Jose Rizal University, Quezon City
De La Salle Araneta University, Malabon City
De La Salle College of St. Benilde, Manila
San Beda College Graduate School, Mendila
A copy of this was handed to the staff of President Duterte
At his residence in Davao City
August 26, 2016

Introduction
In 2012, my DBA student handed me Nassim Nicolas Taleb’s book, Antifragile. I can only surmise why he gave it. Was it because my approach to teaching Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility was basically behavioral and qualitative?  Could it be that he was not comfortable with Taleb’s concept of randomness and fragility that presented a myriad of non-linear events that cannot be managed or predicted through financial regression analyses?  The academic term ended; I never got any answer.

I did start to read itbut failed to finish it cover to cover.  The fine print of the paperback and the voluminous, rambling examples of fragility and antifragility in the field of economics, politics, medicine, and physical science taxed my failing senior eyesight. Then, on April 26, 2016 Intellicare invited me to a management workshop on Scaling up Organizational and Leadership Capabilities. Vice President Rommel Ancheta mentioned a Q&A on Antifragility, so I gothold of Taleb’s book again.

In that forum, President and Founder Mario Silos challenged his corporate leaders to make Intellicare an ‘antifragile’ organization. I advanced the notion that scalability of quantum growth and organizational antifragility share the umbrella of chaos where there is constant disequilibrium in this Age of Upheaval.  Quantum growth, to my mind, requires a shift from a Cartesian-Newtonian outlook to a leadership driven by the new science of metaphysics. Leadership, in the new science, views randomness as a spike of an unusual event that creates havoc on operations that have achieved equilibrium and stability. Taleb suggests to be antifragile, persons and organizations need to  survive and grow in the face of  random disastrous incidents

Objectives
This review primarily aims to provide book lovers and management practitioners selected highlights of Taleb’s new, non-dictionary word: antifragile, the opposite of ‘fragile.’ Secondarily, as an axiologist, I present two additional triads patterned after Taleb’s example of 58 fragile-robust-antifragile triads. My two triads were culled from my lectures in local and international fora, which were published in academic journals and newspaper columns.  Thirdly, I add a worldview triad because multistream-post-Lewinian approach to organization development is emerging; it is focused in changing mindsets instead of the conventional mainstream practice of changing behavior.  This prepares the reader to have a multi-faceted framework in looking at the presidency of Rodolfo Duterte. Fourthly, I pick Taleb’s concept of randomness as it mirrors a new political development in the Philippines with President Duterte as a leader. Here, his leadershipis seen not only from a political and socio-economic perspective but also, and most importantly, from a metaphysical and spiritual viewpoint. Lastly, the CSR triad is presented so that the philanthropic CSR is upgraded to corporate shared values (CSV) and hopefully corporate social initiatives (CSI) will eventually make CSR beneficiaries antifragile.

Methodology
The review follows Taleb’s narrative style to explain what is fragile, robust, and antifragile. As such, his book containing seven chapters is a heuristic research (Moustakas, 1985; Pillans, 2014).  His arguments are mostly mini cases that are presented as evidence clustered under seven conventional chapters, but he prefers to classify them as books on antifragility.  His many stories based on his personal experience primarily as an investment trader, resulted to an antifragile opus of 519 pages.  It contains stories ending with Aristotelian climax and presents mind-twisting conclusions and leaves his readers a taste of an iconoclastic message.  His sardonic and illusive wit is comparable to that of Pilosopong Mang Tacio,

As such, I follow his methodology of narrating my personal observations and telling stories about my experiences to mirror some selected concepts on antifragility. Narration and storytelling provide a retrospect and prospect dimensions of human experience (Hudtohan, 2005; Gonzalez &Luz, 1985; El Savvy; 1983).

“Narratives,“ according to Boje (2008), “shape our past events into experience using coherence to achieve believability. Stories are more about dispersion of events in the present or anticipated to be achievable in the future.  These narrative-coherence and story-dispersion processes interact so that meanings change among people, as their events, identities, and strategies get re-sorted in each meeting, publication, and drama.” (Boje, 2008, p.4).

Storytelling, on the other hand, provides meaning and sense of coherence to complex events to reduce equivocality and unpredictability (Brown & Kreps, 1993. The plot of a story provides a historical background of an event that brings about the current state of affairs for sense-making (Czarniawska, 1998; McIntyre, 1981). Storytelling does not only support sense-making but it is also part of sense-giving processes (Gioia &Thomas, 1996).
Chris Chandler, a professional storyteller, thinks “that the power of a story to shift and show itself to us anew is part of what attracts people to it…No matter where we are in life,the best stories offer us something to consider; to feel, and to think on.” (Auxier & Seng, 2008.P.vii-viii).
Storytelling “has recently become mainstream. It is an undeniably important and useful tool, with the potential to enhance communication across organizations at all levels.” (Pillans, 2014, p.36). Brown (2012, p.252) insists that “storytelling is my DNA, and I couldn’t resist the idea of research as storytelling.  Stories are data with a soul and no methodology honors that more than grounded theory…based on people’s lived experiences.” Storytelling gets our personal message across and helps the reader’s “internal perspective and in cases where choices are unconscious, it can provide a new viewpoint that is more conscious” (Simmons, 2001). Samuels and Lane (2003) assert that “Re-storying reality is…changing a person’s belief system and instilling hope and spirit.”
This review is about Taleb’s many, many narratives and stories interpreted by the reviewer.  In return, the reviewer mirrors his lived experiences against the backdrop of antifragile events and circumstances.  The readers are encouraged to mirror their respective experience in reading my review because subjectivity creates multi-reality and the individual must narrate his/her own discourse on sense-making and meaning-making.(Dawson & Andriopoulos, 2014).

Part I: Fragility and Antifragility

Intuition and Gut Feel
I am discussing intuition and gut feel as introduction to antifragility because the core of being antifragile to my mind is the true self of the individual that survives extreme adverse situations. That individual aside from being rational may react on gut feel and use his/her intuitive power.

The word gut feel I readily identifyas kutob based on my pedestrian Pilipino but kutob is associated  as an early warning about a future event. In Pilipino, itis sagimsim, kaba, wari, andpangitain(http://www.tagalogtranslate.com/en_tl/6599/premonition).  When I look at intuition, I am surprised it is also defined as pangitain.

To explore the meaning of intuition in Pilipino,I suddenly found it difficult to create my own concept, being an Ilonggo with minimal skills in Hiligaynon. Tagalog dictionaries translate intuition aspangitain or vision.“Angpangitain o bisyon ay isangkaranasangkatulad ng isangpanaginip o pangarapnaginagamit ng Diyosupangmakapagdala ng isangmensahepatungosaisangtao.”(Committee on Bible Translation, 1984).Gaboy (n.d.) says, “[Angpangitain ay] kaugnayrinito ng pagtanaw, pagkakita, pagmamalas, o pagkakini-kinita ng isang taong may matalinong pag-iisipsakung ano ang mangyayari sa hinaharap.” His translation of intuition is still related to vision. Intuition as pangitainis also associated with vision. I think something is lost in translation here. If I may add, intuition as hula also suggests an inaccurate judgment and connotes weak determination; literally, hulais guessing, but not being intuitive.

I find solace in Christine Page (1997, p.29) who explains intuition as “farmore personal than inspiration and yet still universally objective, reflecting that what is beneficial to the individual will, on a soul level, benefit all concerned…When we are working from our intuition, we will combine the information from our instincts, our emotions and from our logic, and formulate a decision from a non-judgmental point of view using wisdom and compassion.”

On the other hand, when we use our gut feel, we are purely reacting without taking the response to a higher level of understanding; and this is not intuition.  Page (1997,p.31)asserts that “gut feelings emerge from the energy centre known as the solar plexus; its purpose is to help us achieve self-worth and self-value.  But, if this centre is acting alone, it will aim to maintain our own personal power at the expense of others, leading to increase sensitivity and wariness towards an environment and those who live within it.”

The rational mind of the followers of Rene Descartes and Isaac Newtonian has been the pathway to practical life at the expense of intuition and gut feel.  But Albert Einstein, the transition pioneer and advocate of the new science, wraps it up too well when he said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind its faithful servant. We have honored the servant and has forgotten the gift.” (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/18/intuitive-mind/). Some 30 years ago, I devoured reading theRational Manager of Kepner and Tregoe (1981) when I was training director of Malayan Insurance Company and was tasked to enhance the managerial skills of the corporate officers and insurance agents.

Today, Nassim Taleb expresses his intuitive mind by rethinking old rules and by proposing a new mindset on matters that he personally experienced from his gut.  His book, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder,published on November 27, 2012 by Random House in the United States and Penguin in the United Kingdom, builds upon ideas from his previous works including Fooled by Randomness(2001), TheBlack Swan(2007–2010), and The Bed of Procrustes (2010) and is the fourth book in the four volume philosophical essay on uncertainty titled The Incerto.

Intuition and gut feel allow rational, non-rational and nonlinear reaction to situations that confront us daily.  They are the springboards from which fragility, robustness and antifragility grow and develop.

Fragile vs. Antifragile
Merriam-Webster defines fragile as “easily broken or destroyed” and “constitutionally delicate and lacking in vigor.”Dictionary.com defines it as “easily broken, shattered, or damaged, delicate, brittle; frail, vulnerably delicate, lacking in substance or force, and flimsy.”

Robust is defined in Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “strong and healthy, strongly formed or built, successful or impressive and not likely to fail or weaken.   Dictionary.com says it is “strongly or stoutly built: suited to or requiring bodily strength or endurance; rich and full-bodied; and strong and effective in all or most situations and conditions”

Taleb does not define the opposite of fragile as robust; he creates an oxymoron by presenting a non-existing word in the dictionary: antifragile.  To prove his point, he lists 58 examples of “fragile-robust-antifragile” triads that we normally experience in our daily life.  His triads are presentations of heuristic, experiential data and he admitted he was not into creating a theory or generalization.  But the insights he makes are certainly mind-boggling and one is led to nod his head and agree to many of these triads.  I recognized 16 triads as an axiologist, ethicist and values formateur.  I some how got a feel on what  antifragile is.

For Taleb the opposite of fragility is beyond being robust and resilient; the opposite is antifragility. He looks at antifragility as a property of systems that increase in capability, resilience, or robustness as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm, which leads to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility in term of variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty. He grouped factors under the designation “disorder cluster”.  He defines fragility as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading a negative sensitivity to increase in volatility. According to him the relationship between fragility, convexity, and sensitivity to concavity and disorder is mathematical, obtained by theorem, not derived from empirical data mining or some historical narrative. (Taleb,2012).

On the other hand, the Eastern approach to resiliency is to discipline the mind to calm, non-combative attitudes in all conditions.  At the spiritual core, “Everything is already inside” for Tamura believes that you are the answer.  He says, “To be who we are, to have all that is within us and to fully express our divine heritage – that is our purpose for living and the destination of our journey..”(Tamura, 2007, p.5). Seale (2003) remarks, “The more you know who you are and the more you live that true identity, the stronger and clearer are your perceptions and sense of reality, and the less you are swayed by forces that go against your nature.  You have the power to make your own choice and to create your life as you want it tobe.”(Seale, 2003, p.5).  Tamura and Seale affirm need to be resilient and therefore one comes out robust, but not antifragile in Taleb’s terms.

Taleb (2012, p.3) introduces antifragility as “some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”

Visually, it appears that concave fragility assumes that the impact of a stressor is inwardly absorbed and the individual needs to fortify himself by being robust.  It is a defensive reaction against stress by being able to arrest the negative impact.  The self is protected from further collapse by being robust.

But convex antifragility is a proactive posturing.  In sports and in chess for example, a strategic move is to adopt the idea: the best defense is a good offense.  It means the individual is aggressively building his resiliency and strength by exercising his power to react and even conquer the environment.  It appears that this is a very aggressive Western approach, exercised by the Nomads in Europe and eventually transferred to the New World of America.  It spread throughout South America and eventually to Asia through Spanish and American conquests. The concave approach is very Asian. Traditional China was defensive by building the Great Wall; traditional India protected its interest in Gandhi’s era by non-violent resistance.  The Hindu Zen gurus meditated and levitated to create peace and harmony.

I am familiar with the maxim: What does not kill you will make you stronger. But Taleb’s (2012, p.76) variant is “What does not kill me makes kills others.”I researched and discovered that my common understanding of getting stronger came from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s1888 book entitled, Twilight of the Idols. The original German phrase was “Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.” This saying comes from the “Maxims and Arrows” section of that book. It is usually translated into English as “what does not kill me makes me stronger.” Taleb further explains, “What did not kill me did not make me stronger, but spared me because I am stronger than others; but it killed others and the average population is now stronger because the weak are gone.” (Taleb, 2012, p.76)

Taleb (2012, p.74) opines that Nietzsche’s maxim is either Mithridatism (King Mithridates practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering regularly non-lethal amountsto develop immunity) or hormesis (an example of mild antifragility, where the stressor is a poisonous substance and the antifragile becomes better overall from a small dose of the stressor). He says, this is different from robustness or resilience because the antifragile system improves with the stressors that are not too large or small. Conclusively, Taleb believes that depriving the systems of vital stressors is not necessarily a good thing and it can be downright harmful.

David Howden (2014) presents some of Taleb’s insights on antifragility.  He says, “Authors should be shocked to learn that there is almost no news that can harm a writer’s credibility, and that any publicity is good publicity (pp. 51–52). Corporations and governments that try to ‘re-instill confidence’ should not be trusted because they would do so only if they were ultimately doomed (p. 53). Children shouldn’t be on antidepressants as this removes a source of learning from the life experience and thus make individuals less capable of dealing with unwanted events later in life (p. 61). The sinking of the Titanic was a positive disaster as it put shipbuilders on their toes, and possibly avoided an even larger accident later (p. 72). The general theme is that those who make errors are stronger than those who don’t—reliability, or antifragility—only comes when something is regularly tested by an unwanted event.”

Randomness and Fragility
Ancient literature provides us some insights into the origin of chaos. In the Greek cosmological poem, Theogony, Hesiod (c.725 BCE), in line 116, states that “first of all Chaos came to be” and the Earth and everything else became stable.  The Greeks accepted disorder as a precondition to order. In Chinese mythology, the dragon is a visual image of order (yang), which emerged from chaos.  Then, the Chinese creation myth yin, a ray of pure light emerges from chaos and  builds the sky; Yin (female) and yang (male) principles act together to create the universe.  As they emerged from chaos, they both retain the qualities of chaos.  Cartwright (2012) observed that“[I]n the I Ching, the ever-changing relationship between the two poles is responsible for the constant flux of the universe and life in general. When there is too great an imbalance between yin and yang, catastrophes.”

In quantum physics, chaos is “unpredictable behavior occurring in response to precisely deterministic laws.  An essential feature of a chaotic system is that its behavior is non-linear, so that a small change in the initial conditions of…a situation in the world may have a very large influence on the outcome…This means that what are called ‘predictive errors’ resulting from the precision of our knowledge about the initial conditions of the system get bigger as time passes, until, beyond certain point, we cannot predict how the situation will develop at all.” (Gribbin, 1998, p.73).

According to Laszlo (2006, p.vii), “Chaos in modern systems theory defines the state of a system in which its stable cycles and processes give way to complex, seemingly unordered behavior, governed by so-called strange or chaotic attractors. . . A chaos window – in the human context of decision-making – is a transitory period in the evolution of a system during which any input of influence, however small, can ‘blow up’ to change existing trends and bring new trends and processes into existence.”  He concludes that the 21st century has reached the chaos point, the crucial tipping point in the evolution of a system which can bring about a breakthrough or a breakdown.

Margaret Wheatley (2008), in agreement with Taleb’s randomness and chaos, asserts that equilibrium which stabilizes any system or organization tends to promote stagnation, leading to non-growth and entropy and therefore chaos is needed to bring about change. In her book, Leadership and the New Science, she comments on equilibrium and entropy, saying “equilibrium is a result of the workings of the Second Law of Thermodynamics…equilibrium is the end state of evolution of closed systems, the point at which the system has exhausted all of its capacity for change. Entropy is an inverse measure of a system’s capacity for change, done its work, and dissipated its productive capacity into useless entropy.” (Wheatley, 2008, p. 76).  She defines entropy as an inverse measure of the system’s capacity to change, similar to   Taleb’s “concave” reaction  to change that brought about fragility.  She cites Peter Convey and Roger Highfield (1990, p.153) in affirming Taleb’s observation on fragility. She says, “Entropy and randomness are at their greatest, in which all life has died out.” Taleb’s panacea to entropy and randomness is antifragility.  This is his new contribution in the field of Chaos Theory, even if he intentionally states that he is not into theory building.

Gregg Braden (2009), in Fractal Time, sees cyclic history, even in random events that create chaos. He says, “Growing evidence suggests that time’s waves, and the history within them, repeat as cycles within cycles.  As each new cycle begins, it carries the same conditions as the past, but with greater intensity.  It’s this fractal time that becomes the events of the universe and life.” In his language, fractal time is Taleb’s antifragility randomness. In the mind of Braden, random events eventually reappear as patterns.

Chaos and Antifragility
Taleb (2012) recognizes this quality as antifragile, which allows the organizations to grow when exposed to volatility of their immediate environment by learning to manage it. In Taleb’s estimation, antifragility considers randomness as an essential ingredient for organizations to prosper; by depriving organizations from volatility and shocks, they lose the opportunity to grow and their system is weakened.

Ayham and Backhouse (2013) assert that for viability and growth to be maintained in chaotic environments, organizations have highly effective learning systems in order to manage and learn from stressors they experience (Hannah and Lester 2009).  They  presented service  operations  designed to  build  an  “antifragile”   organization  to  learn  from  disruptions. Their  findings  suggest  that  the  Vanguard  Method  will  likely  enhance  organizational “antifragility” by promoting a multilevel driver for learning from stressors. Antifragility can be operational in three levels: 1) the macro level of clarity on the system, 2) the meso level of organic structure of work place, and 3) the micro level of employees’ engagement with work and readiness to learn.

Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn (2013, p.3) look at chaos from the side of complexity that is “wreaking havoc on business, government and finance.”  Their solution to complexity is simplification which requires organizations to empathize, distill and clarify.  For them, “simplicity begins with empathy by having the ability to perceive the needs of others; it needs to distill by boiling down and customizing what’s being offered to meet needs; and it must clarify to make the offering easier to understand, use, and benefit from information that complicates.”(Siegel & Etzkorn, p.48-49).

Ann Marie Holmes (2006) says, “I knew that there are cycles and phases that return again and again, like the brass ring on the merry go-round.  The ring doesn’t disappear.  We can relax and trust the turning.  The vitality in the earth is irrepressible, and will continue to pulse in and out of visibility, like a star winking in the night sky.  When fragility strikes you, here is her advice when things feel stuck: When work projects feel stuck, try taking a break from the task.  If you are in the process of remodeling or building, or just wishing to be more comfortable or productive in your current quarters, it can be very helpful to take a time-out. . . Nature is always waiting to connect with you and is always just a sound, a beautiful science, or a fresh smell away.” (Holmes, p.239).  With her, I say, nature makes us good natured and makes us antifragile
.

Vulnerability and Fragility
The valuative pronouncements of Brown (2013), L’Engle (1980) and Coelho (2003) on vulnerability provide us with a foundational understanding of human frailty. With Taleb’s antifragility paradigm we are challenged not only to accept our vulnerability but also to actively pursue a life that makes us grow in the face of most difficult and trying circumstances.

Brene Brown (2013, p.32) greatly dares us to have the courage to be vulnerable and accept our fragility.  She says, “Yes, we are totally exposed when we are vulnerable.  Yes, we are in the torture chamber that we call uncertainty.  And yes, we’re taking a huge emotional risk when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. But there’s no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness.”  From this statement, vulnerability is defined as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposures.  Further, she says, “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering [we grow]with trust, respect, kindness and affection.”

MadelieneL’Engle (1980) in her book, Walking on Water, believes that to be alive is to be vulnerable in the end and Paulo Coelho (2003, p.200) in his Spanish novel, Eleven Minutes, arrives at the same conclusion:  “The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.”  The position taken here is that of fragile concavity and acceptance of fragility.  In the mind of Taleb, it may bring about robustness but definitely not growth.  It is when one surfaces from fragility and robustness, coming out much better than ever that one is considered antifragile.

Taleb will not take vulnerability and fragility sitting down.  For him, the best defense against vulnerability is antifragility. He argues: in science move from theory to heuristics, in dealing with regulations move from following rules to being virtuous, in learning move from the classroom to the real life immersed in the library, in seeking knowledge move from the academia to become erudite, in philosophy and science from rationalization to skepticism and subjective empiricism, and in physical training from organized sports and gym machines to street fights. (Taleb, 2012, pp.23-37).

Part II: Two New Triads

Taleb (2012, p.23-27) demonstrates antifragility by means of 52 central triads; but only 40 have three types of exposures showing the progressive fragile-robust-antifragile triads; and 24 central triads did not have any intermediate robust description. At least 16 of these triads are familiar to me based on my corporate experience (1986-2014) for two decades as training director and assistant to the president at Malayan Insurance, Inc. and as training and development consultant of Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company. My academic life from 1967 up till now help me appreciate his triads through my lectures at the graduate school of business of De La Salle University, at the social development program of Philippine Women’s University and at the MBA and PhD program of De La Salle Araneta University and at hotel, restaurant and tourism master’s degree program of De La Salle College of St. Benilde.

I can relate with Taleb’s central triads on philosophy, education, learning, business, decision-making, ethics, mythology, human relationships and politics.  His examples in these areas show what fragility, robustness and antifragility are. Table 1 shows six triads I selected as fairly easy examples of what Taleb meanby fragility, robustness, and antifragility.

Worldview Triad

The worldview central triad in Figure 2 is better understood by making a dichotomy between the natural [physical] state and the super-natural [spiritual] state; between the physical state and the metaphysical state.  In my discussion the physical, metaphysical, and spiritual levels of existence become the three types of exposure to what is fragile, robust, and antifragile.

Fragile Physicality.  For so long, physical realities have been explored to the hilt for human progress. Rene Descartes (1637) assumed a basic dichotomy between mind and matter, between mental and physical processes. The material world was thus conceived of as a machine with mechanical laws governing its behavior. The mind was capable of understanding these laws through rational process. Thus, the famous Cartesian maxim: I think, therefore I am.  Je pense, donc je sui in French and Cogito, ergo sum in Latin. Nature was also subjected to mechanical laws so that all creatures in the living world were considered complex machines operating with clockwork precision.  Then, Isaac Newton formulated the Laws of motion of matter.

Zohar and Marshall (1994) use the word ‘mechanism’ to describe the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm. They opined that “mechanism stresses an unbridgeable gulf between human beings and the physical world. Human consciousness has no role or place in Newton’s vast world machine. This sense of an alien physical realm was extended, in association with Christian influence, to the wider world of nature[that] is perceived as wholly ‘other’ than ourselves, a force to be conquered and used…Mechanism stresses the absolute, the unchanging and the certain. Ambiguity is an enemy. Newton’s absolute space-time coordinates are the framework for a fixed, predictable and rigidly law-abiding universe. Mechanistic society stresses the absolute centre with power radiating outwards…Mechanism stresses hierarchy. It structures existence according to ever descending units of analysis…Mechanism stresses isolated, separate and interchangeable parts…Atomism underlies the modern cult of the expert, the detached individual who is very knowledgeable about isolated bits of information or experience but ignorant of the whole of which these bits are a part. The parts are alienated from each other and from the whole; and the whole is subject to fragmentation. The expert is alienated from the situation or community in which s/he practices her/his expertise.” (Zohar & Marshall, 1994, p. 5-6).

Ralph Kilmann (2001, p.17-18) observed in his book, Quantum Organizations, which summarizes the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm have “seven categories, which have strongly influenced (and continue to guide) how the Western world sees, thinks, and behaves. [And these are] 1. The dualistic separation of consciousness and matter. 2. The universe as the motion of inert molar objects. 3. The space between molar objects as flat and empty. 4. The unique existence of only one absolute universe. 5. The deterministic certainty of inert molar objects. 6. The fundamental separation of inert molar objects. 7. The eventual death of the one absolute universe.  In conclusion, the universe is considered fragile and will ultimately disintegrate.  He averred that “Due to thermodynamics, the cosmic machine will eventually run out of heat, planetary orbits will atrophy, and the inverse will become a random distribution of inert objects – void of heat, life and movement.  The universe therefore is doomed.”(Kilmann, 2001, p.19).

Karakas (2009) cites the following as old paradigms in organization development: Newtonian science is linear and reductive; profit orientation drives competitive advantage, economic gain for short term benefits. Uniformity is hierarchical, absolute, and selective; command and control is top-down and dominating.  Certainty for results and performance need clarity, order and stability.  Partial view within the organization is atomistic, exclusionary, rational and analytical. The old metaphors for organizations in Newtonian science consist of clockwork, static box, and machines.

Margaret Wheatley (2005) in Leadership and the New Science considers Newtonian science as an old science, characterized by the following elements: It has a machine imagery; everything has parts; and it is materialistic; it uses the physical senses, employs direct mechanistic forces; it is deterministic, and pursues a never ending search for better methods of objectively measuring and perceiving the world.  Personal identity in the old science entails no individual decision-making ;the organizational structure is established by authority for controlled through rigid structures, and people are considered cogs in the whole organizational machinery. Newtonian science considers information as tangible, controllable, stable, and obedient. It must be controlled for stability and there must limited access and generation to ensure power.  In relationships, individualism is the rule; there is constant competition; the critical mass and majority is sought after, and objectivity is highly regarded.

Deepak Chopra (2006) in his book, Power, Freedom and Grace, considers the following fragile physical realities operational in old paradigm: “The superstition of materialism says that we are separate from our source and from one another.  The world is composed of visible, solid matter and invisible nonmaterial energy.  Sensory experience – what we can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch – is crucial test of reality. Solid objects, or visible clumps of matter, are separate from one another in space and time.  Mind and matter are separate, independent entities.  The body is a physical machine that has somehow learned how to think. Human beings are self-contained entities with well-defined edges to the body. The human body is composed of matter frozen in space and time.  Our needs are separate from the needs of other living beings. Time exists independently of an observer.  How we interpret our experience of time has no effect on our physiology.” (Chopra, 2006, p. 213-217).

Martha Beck (2012, p. 285) describes humanity as fragile when it continues to adhere to  the old paradigms based on Cartesian-Newtonian perspectives: area of life is seen as the spent old world, the Inner experience of individuals is dominated by fearful stories, relationships are faithful to arbitrary social standards of various cultures, careers are dependent on the repression of a human’s true nature, industries as huge organizations win by controlling the destruction of goods, and technical innovation create machines designed to hoard and exploit nature, devouring resources.

Robust Metaphysicality.  At the onset of the 21st Century, Cartesian-Newtonian science of physicality was being challenged and quantum physics was beginning to make an impact in the field of technology, politics, sociology and business.  From a fragile physical perspective, new writers emerged in promoting a robust worldview paradigm.

Budd and Rothstein (2000) assert that “You are what you say” not just what you think.  According to David Bohm, “That’s what I want to call thought, which includes emotion, body state, physical reaction, perception and everything else.”  He advanced the notion of proprioception of thought, which is an awareness of the movement of thought that allows change through a coordinated system of thinking, feeling, acting and perceiving and this system generates our experience. Capra (1996) averred that the reductionist thinking has alienated us from nature, and from our fellow human beings.  For him, “To regain our full humanity,we have to regain our experience of connectedness with the whole of life.”

For Deepak Chopra (2006, p.13-18), the body-mind as an expression of a larger wholeness is a robust paradigm.  He advances “the new paradigm of a Unified Field of our consciousness, which connects to our source and to one another; [that] the world is composed of one underlying, unmanifest field of intelligence that manifests as the infinite diversity of the universe; [that] the field of intelligence subjectively is the mind; the same field experience objectively is the world of material objects; [that] solid objects are not solid at all, nor are they separate from one another in space and time. Objects are focal points, or concentrations of intelligence, within the field of intelligence; [that] mind and matter are essentially the same.  Both are the offspring of the field of pure consciousness, which conceives and constructs the whole world; [that] infinite consciousness somehow creates the mind and then expresses itself as the body.  The body-mind is the field of pure consciousness; [that] human beings are inseparably interconnected with the patterns of intelligence in the whole cosmos…there are no well-defined edges between our personal body and the universe; [that] time only exists in the mind of an observer.  Time is a concept, an internal dialogue we use to explain our perception of change; [that] how we interpret our experience of time brings about physiological changes in our body.  Entropy and aging are partly an expression of how we metabolize or interpret time; [and that] we live in a participatory universe.  We learn to interpret the world through our senses, and this brings about our perceptual experience.”

Margaret Wheatley’s (2006) robust leadership under a new science promotes a view that is holistic, relational and is aware of energy fields; it is open to probabilities and understands that there is no model for organizational change.  She considers an organization to have self-referenced and is self-organizing which allows freedom throughout the whole system; people are quantum in a flexible structure.  She views communication as something intangible and dynamic; it can generate itself; it must flow freely in order to create new order and must be continually generated. Organizational relationship must promote the principles of complimentarity and uncertainty; it is critical to have connections and linkages; and it is most necessary for enactment and execution of goals.

Karakas (2009, p.15) suggests that  for organizations to be robust, they must be seen from a perspective of New Science which sees organizations as expression of quantum, nonlinear, and multiple truths; they must adopt multiple orientations for cooperation, social, environment, economic sustainability; and they pursue  triple bottom line business results. When embracing diversity in a globalized work environment, they must do lateral, contextual, and inclusive business practices for internal and external stakeholders. They must promote flexibility and empowerment through egalitarian, inspiring, trusting and collaborative endeavors.  When dealing with uncertainty, they must accept ambiguity, chaos, and change in order to survive. They must adopt the brain or ecosystem, dynamic flow, and web-networking as new metaphors in the organizational relationships.

Martha Beck (2012) believes that to be robust in the wild new world of the 21st Century, one must be saturated with the present moment; faithful to the truth of love within and between people; dependent on the expression of a human’s true nature; Individuals and small groups must create win-win ideas for innovative content creation; and machines are designed to heal and preserve nature, and contribute to renewal of resources.
Josef Assaraf (2006, p.8) says, “Our job as humans is to hold on to the thoughts of what we want, make it absolutely clear in our minds what we want, and from that we start to invoke one of the greatest laws in the Universe, and that’s the law of attraction.  You become what you think about most, and you also attract what you think about most.”  Bob Proctor (2006, p.9) affirms this when he says, “If you see it in your mind, you’re going to hold it in your hands.  Finally, Mike Dooley (2006, p.9) concludes, “And that principle can be summed up in three words: Thoughts become things!”
Nicanor Perlas (2000. 2011, 2013 & 2013a)  in 2913, on the eve of Occupy Wall Street and the discovery of a “God particle”  having a faster than light speed, lectured on integral consciousness as a new frame of mind that we need to stand in today’s world of enormous change and challenges.  Like the other metaphysicists, he proposed the non-dual consciousness to be able to use the now moment and access the past and future.  That quantum moment is critical to the direction of then change and transformation that each much contribute to global consciousness (Wilber, 2000; 2007) for transformation.  Integral consciousness is operational within his three-folding framework of government, business and civil society converging for transformation.  The imaginal self (Perlas, 2011, p. 30-49) goes through the following stages: 1. Calling, 2. Trials, 3. Enlightenment and 4. Returning of self to the world.  The cycle of transformation goes through a linear stage of current reality impinging on structure, on institutions, and upon individuals.  In return the individual influences institutions, structures and effectively change current reality. Perlas co-founded a national civil society movement seeking the creation of a better country and a better world on the basis of profound inner change. He ran for the 2010 presidential election on the platform of three-folding but lost to President Benigno Aquino III. He carries his advocacy through the Movement of Imaginals for Sustainability. Because of the local, national, regional and global impact of his work, he received many awards, most prominent of these is the Right Livelihood Award or the Alternative Nobel Prize.  For me, his imaginal self and integral consciousness are the sterner stuff that will make the individual, whom I consider robust metaphysically.
In 1995, Pearl, my spouse, after recovering from her loss voice put in writing a wish for “foreign travel as a family” at the back cover of her book.  Figure 4 shows her written intention in 1995.  She wished that our daughter and I together with her will travel to Singapore; this is at the level of thought put into writing; I represent her thought as light, an idea, an invisible reality in her mind.  The drawing of a home is a symbol of family under one roof and presumably she is wishing that the one roof will be in a hotel, a physical reality. In 1999 her thought became real; we actually traveled to Singapore as a family; I call it materiality; the destination in her mind is represented by six atomic visuals, which should really be called quarks.

In 1991, I decided to replace our third-hand Volkswagen with an XL Toyota.  The acquisition of the car was delayed because my wife, my daughter and I preferred three different colors. It was not until we all agreed to settle for a white Toyota that our dream first brand new car materialized.  Metaphysically, convergence of consciousness brings about fulfillment of an idea, a dream and a desire. The same car was locked in at the Makati parking lot across Greenbelt in the late 1990s.  Logically, my wife went to MACEA office for assistance.  I remained at the parking, where a chain was strung across the exit.  I recognized a Yale lock and also remembered our parking lot at the Banico residence near Bro. Andrew Gonzalez, FSC Hall at Fidel A. Reyes St.  I inserted the key and wriggled it. Lo and behold, I was able to open the lock.  I drove the car out and by the time my wife arrived, she was surprised to see me standing beside the car.  At that moment, I demonstrated to her how I opened the lock; but to no avail.  A week later, not convinced with what happened, I returned to the parking lot; I could no longer repeat my magical feat.  I began to believe in a metaphysical dictum: Thoughts materialize.

In 2011, when we moved to our new residence at Grand Tower 1, Vito Cruz, Manila, I launched a campaign against street children who were regularly begging for alms and food, and harassing passengers and taxi drivers for their ‘services’ in hailing a taxi.  I distributed the announcement of Department of Social Welfare and Development Assistant Secretary Javier Jimenez to “eliminate the presence of street children engaging in begging or any other inappropriate activities that endanger their lives and future.” (Junio, 2014).  I am extremely hopeful to note that President Duterte is addressing this problem nationwide. The words of DSWD Asst. Secretary Jimenez, my thoughts and actions regarding street children found expression in the pronouncement of President Duterte to enforce curfew for minors upon his election as president in 2016.  It took two years for my thoughts to manifest into action.

Antifragile Spirituality.  In the Philippines, spirituality has been confused with religiosity because our Catholic faith has so dominated our life with 400 years of numerous rites and ceremonies.  The struggle from physicality to metaphysicality is already a major challenge.  I expect many will have a difficult transition from a robust metaphysicality to move a notch higher toward an antifragile spirituality.  In human development, spirituality is considered by Ken Wilber (2000, 2007) as one of the highest possibilities in his All Quadrants All Line (AQAL) graph.

In Figure 2, I show that spirituality is a convex state which I translate as Taleb’s antifragility. It overcomes challenging circumstances and results to growth and greater strength. I translate physicality as a concave state of being fragile, where one is overcomed by chaos and disorder. I consider metaphysicality, represented by a straight line,as a state of being robust, where one is resilient and is able to withstand stressful events but there isno growth nor development.

On November 23, 2014, I wrote in the “Green Light” column of Manila Standard Today an article that mentioned two theological authors (Br. Andrew Gonzalez,FSC and Br. James Ebner, FSC) and two Filipino spiritual writers (Tato Malay and George Sison) as leading thinkers in promoting a shift to a new spirituality (Hudtohan, 2014).  Today, I consider these four writers as inspirators of a movement toward antifragile spirituality.

Gonzalez (2002, 2006) was promoting an antifragile spirituality when he said that an adult believer is one that “acts and lives his life accordingly, respecting traditions and even Church official teachings, but transcending them based on his own convictions and commitments,” (Gonzalez, 2002, p.4). For him the creeds are necessary documentaries that give stability to formulae and be considered eternally valid pronouncements and declarations.  However, he calls for “changes in formulations to continue the tradition of faith seeking understanding of the believing and living community.”  He said that the dominant metaphor of God in the 19^th century was the God of History, God of Progress and God of Evolution.  In the 21^st century, “The God of Quantum Mechanics” or probabilities is thus the latest in a series of human…metaphors of the Divinity.  Human beings are free to choose to deal with the divinity in personal terms.” (Gonzalez, 2006, p.142).As such, Church doctrines need to be interpreted in the 21st century by adult Catholics if they wish to be antifragile believers.

James Ebner (1975, 1977) was a precursor of antifragile theology. Hisbook, God Present as Mystery, he said, “Theology today, then, urges us to value and trust our depth experiences.  [The] intimations of a Mystery Present [God] can be felt [as] peace and fellowship.” While he respects “those who understand their fidelity to the faith as keeping unchanged what they may have learned in childhood,” he believes that church spokesmen and theological experts are doing enough to promote the shift from fragile Christianity to antifragile Catholicism. In his theological frame, community religion that enforces its symbols upon the young that ultimately disconnect them with their depth experience nails them to a fragile spirituality.  In fragile spirituality, community of adults are indoctrinated, resulting to inauthentic religion, false conscience, and lip-service faith.There is hope that contemporary applied theology with “awareness of glimmerings in our depths”among priests and ministers can bring about antifragile Catholic communities.

The depth experience of Tato Malay (2014) is revelatory of James’ depth theology.  I consider him a person with antifragile spirituality.  Through personal in-depth experience and self-education, he discovered his true self and his God. His book, Lessons I Never Learned from School, recounts his journey in earning a livelihood without a college degree. More importantly, he discovers the principles of consciousness and spirituality that truly makes him human. On his own, he formulated the law of manifestation, attraction, harmony, right action, expanding influence, pure desire and paradoxical intent.  The law of manifestation is demonstrated by his prayer: “Thank you, Father, for my all-new 1999 silver Honda Accord.” The ‘thank you’ part affirms that the Honda is already received. And he did receive it. For him, God the Father became his source of infinite and unlimited abundance and through God his personal thoughts are made manifest in the real world. As founder of Kamalayan foundation, he assists people meet the challenge of the 21st century. His antifragile spirituality is intended for individuals “from any culture, nationality, tradition or religion who wish to have a new vision of life, love, and spirituality.”

George, formerly a devout practicing Catholic, isan advocate antifragile consciousness.  His books, A Miracle Awaits You, I Am a Winner, and Soul Spa are spiritual guidelines for higher personal consciousness.  His perspectives, aligned with the antifragile spiritual framework of Gonzalez and Ebner, are expressed in metaphysical language written in English and Pilipino.  From a fragile practicing Catholic, he, like Malay, is promoting quantum consciousness that leads to a God of antifragile spirituality.  As founder of the Temple of People, Peace, and Prosperity, he manages a transformative center right here in the Philippines.  His temple is a realization of James’s human race church, described in God Present as Mystery; it is likewise an expression of Ken Wilber’s universal religion based on AQAL theory.  His temple is a temple of antifragile spirituality.

Metaphysicians transcend to antifragile spirituality.  They also assert the completion of the thought process which ends with action and therefore, “You are what you do.” You are capable of such an action because you are made to the image and likeness of the creator. In Byrne’s (2006, p.184) book, The Secret, Michael Bernard Beckwith (2006) proclaims that “You are God in a physical body.  You are Spirit in the flesh. You are Eternal Life expressing itself as You.  You are cosmic being.  You are all power.  You are all wisdom.  You are all intelligence.  You are perfection.  You are magnificence.  You are the creator, and you are creating the creation of You on this planet.”

James Ray (2006) equates the metaphysical definition of energy to a theological definition of God.  He says, “What we know about energy is this: You go to a quantum physicist and you say, What creates the world? And he or she will say, Energy.  Well, describe energy. Ok, it can never be created or destroyed, it always was, always has been, everything that ever existed always exists, it’s moving into form, through form and out of form.  You go to a theologian and ask the question: What created the Universe? And he or she will say, God.  OK, describe God. Always was, always has been, everything that ever existed always exists, it’s moving into form, through form and out of form. You see, it’s the same description, just different terminology.” (Ray, 2006, 159).

Jean Netario-Cruz, neuropathist (2016), posted in Facebook: “Matter is the lowest level of spirit, and spirit is the highest degree of matter.” This is the conclusion she made in recommending this book, Touch of Healing of Jin Shin Iyushu by Alice Burnmeister and Tom Monte (1997).  The matter-spirit unity is very Eastern in contrast to the Aristotelian tradition of body-mind and matter-form dichotomy.  The book “offers readers the means to greater health, vitality, and self-understanding through the practice of an ancient oriental healing art and practical holistic philosophy called Jin Shin Jystsu. Gentle touching similar to acupressure is used to release tension that accumulates and is at the root of dysfunction, disease, and imbalance.” (Burnmeister, 1997).

As early as in 1990, my spouse Pearl (readerscenter.com) was experiencing personal discomfort over Catholic religiosity and her readings eventually led her to do a quantum leap to a global spirituality. For a number of years she agonized over the traditional practices of the Church regarding mass celebration, liturgical rites especially during Holy Week, and other devotional practices that chain the faithful to the externalities of Christianity.  In 2016, the candid statements of Duterte, for her, are manifestations of her own thoughts about the official posturing of the Philippine Church hierarchy.  Duterte mentioned that the Catholic Church is a “hypocritical institution” and “whether or not [it is] still relevant today” (Regalado, 2016) were part of her religious issues that now manifests in the words of a new leader.

Corporate Social Responsibility Triad

The corporate social responsibility central triad is composed of three types of exposure, namely,  philanthropic CSR, corporate shared values (CSV) and corporate social initiates (CSI).  Philanthropic CSR is fragile, CSV is robust and CSI is antifragile.

Philanthropic CSR.  By the end of the 20th century, the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) was made prominent by Archie Carroll (1991; 1999) whose CSR pyramid of economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic activities is now considered a classic framework for CSR practitioners. The basis of what we consider to be the modern definition of CSR is rooted in Archie Carroll’s Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility. The pyramid has four types or levels of responsibilities. The first and foremost is the economic profitability. The second is legal responsibility to obey the laws set forth by the government. The third is the ethical responsibility, which goes beyond legal compliance to law. The fourth is the philanthropic responsibility. This voluntary and discretionary responsibility is corporate responsibility toward  internal and external stakeholders.

Figure 5 shows a corporate response through voluntary initiatives that benefit the community as external stakeholder.  The principle of giving here is often considered philanthropic but critics look upon it as temporary and short term alleviation of the poor and unproductive sector of society.  Some corporations are also accused of using such CSR as public relations and corporate marketing strategy. From Taleb’s perspective, this is fragile CSR because it is not sustainable and its impact on the community is concave fragility.

Corporate Shared Values.  Michael Porter and Mark Kramer (2011) argue that innovating to meet society’s need and building a profitable enterprise are the twin goals of the next generation of completive companies.  Marc Pfitzer, Valerie Bockstette and Mike Stamp (2013) used the case of Dow Chemical, Nestle, Norvatis, Mars, and Intel as examples of companies following Porter and Kramer’s idea of creating shared value with and for their external stakeholders.

Their shared value model encompasses the creation of a social and business value which includes: social purpose, a defined need, measurement, the right innovation structure, and a co-creation.  These five elements reinforce on another.  They said, “Social purpose helps a firm identify the needs it might want to address…A deeply held social purpose is also important for co-creation, forming the basis for trusted relationships.  Understanding a region’s particular needs helps define what can be improved and by how much, and the value of that change to the business.  The degree to which the potential for shared value can be anticipated and aligned with the company’s financial criteria determines the optimal innovation structure forth social venture.”(Pfitzer, Bockstette& Stamp, 2013).

Sustainability projects with the community entails developing community manpower resources as inputs to achieve the mission, vision, and values of the company.  This is corporate-centered endeavor and the beneficiaries in return support the values of the company, as shown in Figure 6 by the two circles overlapping in the Venn diagram.  This appears robust because both parties appear to have a win-win   advantage.   However, the community as beneficiaries has not achieved a full convex antifragility.

Corporate Social Initiatives.  Beyond philanthropic endeavors that provide short-term impact on the community, corporations are encouraged to directly involve themselves in sustainable community projects (Alperson, 1996; Hess, Rogovsk, and Dunfee, 2002, Habaradas, 2013).  In this new development framework, CSR is sustainable because it has graduated from giving away fish to teaching the community how to fish. (Hess & Warren, 2008).

In the Philippines, the CSI concept is exemplified by The Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP). Founded in 1970, it has involved 260 large, medium-scale and small businesses intended to help the poor rise above poverty and become self-reliant.  It has benefited 4.5 million Filipinos and has assisted over 6,200 social development projects through more than PHP 7 billion in grants and development loans. (www.pbsp.org.ph).

I consider CSI as antifragile social responsibility because from the point of view of the beneficiaries, they are in a convex mode of relationship.  Visually, this is translated to a happy smiling face of Taleb’s antifragile convexity. When this happens, corporate capitalist institutions are behaving from a Marxian socialist view of social enterprise.

Eastern Socialist CSR.  But CSR in the East, exemplified by Chinese government, is mandatory and not voluntary as originally conceive by the West. China, one of the world’s emerging superpowers,is now   challenging the economic and political hegemony of the United States and Europe (Morris, 2011).

Although China is one of America’s largest trading partners, it is now attempting to develop a new, legal, but not voluntary CSR system. Bradford and Posner (2011) note that China takes the strictest line on sovereignty and contests the use of military force against independent states. But China also believes that international law should lessen burdensome obligations on poor countries and economic growth should take precedence over human rights in poor countries.

China’s move toward mandatory CSR is part of the macro historical transformations throughout China, as the Chinese government re-orients the Chinese economy into a capitalistic market- based economy in order to raise its global economic and political power through which it carries out its economic reforms.  For the Chinese government, CSR is a major component in addressing the social unrest of its people as it undergoes rapid economic growth and change. China’s recent CSR reforms are driven by the government revolutionary shift from a state-run economic system to a privatized, market-oriented capitalist system aimed at increasing China’s economic development and economic growth.

For nearly a generation, and accelerating in the past decade, the Chinese government has tried to re-orient its state-run business economy toward private capitalist enterprise as part of a policy for reform. It moved away from a centrally planned economic system to one that embraces a laissez faire, free trade and liberal economic principles long practiced by the West. Thus, the Marxian tradition of many social welfare services that were formerly provided by the Chinese government are now turned over to the private sector or individuals (Chodorow, 2012).

The concept of corporate social responsibility originally implemented as voluntary philanthropic endeavor is now an obligation of private corporations to act in behalf of the Chinese government in addressing the needs of the impoverished sector.  From a Marxian socio-economic perspective, it appears that antifragile corporate social responsibility has now evolved into an antifragile state-business partnership in CSR.

Part III: Antifragility of the New President

The presidency of Rodrigo Roa Duterte evokes Taleb’s observation on randomness based on Chaos Theory. It is a stark reminder that from a metaphysical and cosmological perspective, his six-year term falls within the closing period of Galactic Alignment, which culminates in Harmonic Convergence (Page, 2008) and his character resurfaces the concept of Aristotelian and Thomistic virtue, which Taleb considers as an antifragile personal quality.

Firstly, I view the emergence of Rodrigo Roa Duterte into power as President of the Republic of the Philippines as a random event amidst the chaotic political six-year term of former President Benigno Aquino III.  After May 9, 2016, the many events that followed continue to appear as abnormal as he journeys into his presidency.  Secondly, the period in which he serves as president is cosmologically written among the stars as a period of great change and breakthrough 2016 – 2022; his term is within the Harmonic Convergence that heralds the return of the Great Mother through Galactic Alignment that brings about creative intuition, emotional creativity, and renewal.  This spiritual transformation ends in 2023. Thirdly, the character and personality of President Duterte are best described as antifragile from the time he was mayor of Davao City to the time that he became the President.

Duterte and Random Events
Randomness in Chaos Theory is a spike known as chaos point, which Erwin Laszlo predicts will lead to “breakdown or breakthrough.”(Laszlo, 2006). He says, “This point will be reached when critical processes – conflicts and stresses in society, inequality in the distribution of resources in the economy, and the degeneration of vital balances in the ecology – reach a phase of irreversibility.  Our systems will be launched on a trajectory either toward breakdown or toward breakthrough.” (Laszlo, 2006, p.108).  The term of Benigno Aquino III brought this country to a chaos point.

On May 9, 2016, the Philippines was at a crossroad.  The landslide victory of Rodrigo Roa Duterte was a manifestation that the Filipino nation was not about to breakdown.  Sixteen million Filipinos opted for change in governance; change that focuses on corruption, drug menace and restoration of law and order.  Many random events surround his presidency.

Elvie Punzalan-Estabillo (2016) enumerates the following events as out of the normal protocol and practices in political affairs, which I consider random events: “First time to have an elected President from Mindanao. First time to have a separate inauguration of the President and Vice President.First to have an unparalleled austere, simple yet meaningful inauguration of our elected President.First time to hold simple breakfast buffet at the PICC for the guests to the President’s inauguration.  First time to convene President’s guests at the PICC and later transported to Malacanang via tourist buses.  First time for a newly installed President to deliver the shortest inaugural speech in our history.  First time for a President to give marching orders as he delivers his inaugural address.  First time for a President to conduct its first cabinet meeting live!”  Jose Ruiz Butuyan (2016) noted that he is the first reluctant presidential candidate.
The inaugural feature of The Philippine Star(2016) stated that he is 71 years old and the first president to be elected in his 70s and the oldest to assume the presidency.  He is the first city mayor and the third mayor to be elected president, having served as mayor of Davao City (1986-1998, 2001-2010, and 2013-2016). He is the first city prosecutor to become president, serving the City Prosecution Office from 1977-1986). He is the first president to be nationally elected without a previous national position.  He is the first president from Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Laban ng Bayan.  He is the first president who rides motorcycles.
Bong R. Osorio (2016) observes that linear performance of the past administration under Benigno Aquino III will have a random spike in governance under President Duterte.  He sees that “we will most likely live under a regime that will constantly introduce changes: new improvements in managing and delivering government services, and new ways of staying ahead of the competition.”
Cito Beltran (2016) writes something out of the ordinary.  He says, “It seems that we have gotten used to what we want, hearing what we want and being in control of events, engagement, statements and expectations all based on our collective adherence to ‘Political Correctness.’  Then one day someone named Rodrigo Duterte wins the Presidency and violates our sensibilities or defies publicly established behavior, we react with sanctimonious violence through word.”  This spike that is out of the ordinary is part of creating a disequilibrium that ought to lead to meaningful change so that people become antifragile.
These random events that surround the life of President Duterte do not follow the linear, ordinary course of social and political road map to success.  The many random spikes manifested groundbreaking firsts that support Laszlo’s contention that we have reached Chaos Point and a decision was for a Breakthrough. In Taleb’s term, he emerged an antifragile president and Ana Marie Pamintuan (2016) actually used Taleb’s Black Swan to describe his victory in the 2016 presidential race.
Carmen Pedrosa (2016) believes that the Filipino nation opted for a Duterte Breakthrough.  Without acknowledging it, she snatched the  word ‘breakthrough’ from Laszlo’s Chaos Point  in her column “From A Distance” when she said, “Last Thursday, June 30, 2016 City Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte was formally installed as President of the Philippines. To many Filipinos, it was like breathing a whiff of fresh air at dawn.  It was exhilarating.  I call it the Duterte breakthrough.”  Yes, the Philippines reached the Chaos Point during the term of former President Benigno Aquino III and the will of the Filipino people did not want to continue the breakdown of public governance.  A decision-point was reached for a breakthrough.

There were prophetic pronouncements regarding the presidency of Duterte.  Pastor Quiboloy had a vision in a dream 18 years ago that he saw Duterte play golf in Malacanang and the universe during his six-year term is going to conspire with him to bring harmony and prosperity to our homeland.  He is within the period of Galactic creativity (1986-2023) in accordance with Mother Galactica.  The plans of Duterte are already creating a new consciousness on national peace and order, elimination of graft and corruption, inclusive economic growth based on commercial wealth, and new governance through federalism. Symbolically, his visit to the tomb of his mother is a manifestation of a feminine energy that is resident in his heart, mind, body and spirit.

Pedrosa (2016) attests to the fact that Former President Ramos told her not to lose hope for “we will find a leader.  It was a prophecy that he worked on…The crowd was ready with the Philippine brand of crowdsourcing…The crowd and a leader they needed came together.  It is sometimes referred as destiny.”  She calls it destiny; metaphysicians call it manifestation of the Law of Attraction.  What we think materializes; thoughts become things.  As such, therefore, there is no such thing as accidents. We make it happen.

Duterte and Galactic Alignment.
Cosmologists on the other hand talk about cyclic events in the universe that bring about extraordinary effect on the planet like ours.  The back cover of the book of Christine Page (2008) is very precise in explaining the changes brought about by the movements in the galaxy. It says, “This is an extraordinary time in the planet’s history. In 2012, for the first time in 26,000 years, our sun will be most closely aligned to the Galactic Center.  This Galactic Alignment, which began with Harmonic Convergence in 1987 and will conclude in 2023, presents thirty-six year window of opportunity for humanity to participate in the creation of a new era of expanded consciousness….Auspiciously aligning Earth with the heart of the Great Mother, the Galactic Alignment heralds a rebirth of the divine feminine qualities of the Triple Goddess – intuition, emotionally creativity, and renewal.”

Duterte and Harmonic Convergence.  The Harmonic Convergence in 1987 is significant for the Philippine peace process.  According to Tuazon (2016), “[A]ll presidents since 1986 have been compelled to negotiate with the Left not only due to the futility of ending the rebellion by force but also because its cause has withstood the test of times from a dictatorship to elite regimes.”  The Harmonic Convergence ends in 2023 and Duterte’s term ends in 2022.  His move for federalism and his invitation for the National Democratic Front and the National People’s Army to come to terms with the Philippine Government are within the time frame of Harmonic Convergence.  The end of armed conflict characterized by masculine dominance and the new era of peace and harmony mirrored by maternal care and nurturance must be seen in the light of cosmic change (Page, 2006).  Duterte’s visit to her mom after election symbolizes the feminine force resident within a man who appears tough and rugged, but is driven by the soft values nurtured by maternal care.

This maternal care is what Pope Francis (2015) in his encyclical “Laudato si’, mi’ Signore”[Praise be to you, my Lord] quotes the canticle, St. Francis of Assisi who recognized Mother nature warm, “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”. The same care has been an advocacy of Carol Gilligan(1982) who, reacting against a male-dominated ethical perspectives of Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, advanced the notion of Ethics of Care.

The Catholic Church continues to promote the soft values that fuel humanistic empathy. Pope Francis declared December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016 the extraordinary holy year of mercy.  In 2014, The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) declared the Philippines “A Nation of Compassion and Mercy” in preparation for the January 2015 visit of Pope Francis (Hudtohan, 2014).President Duterte, who is at odds with the Catholic Church in some issues, appears to be aligned with the Church when during his inaugural he declared that “Malasakit, Tunay na Pagbabago. [Compassion, Real Change].” Socialist Satur Ocampo (2016) harps on compassion as the defining “character and direction of his administration.  On this score, the Church, the President and the socialist Ocampo (2016) are of one mindset in addressing the needs of the poor.  President Duterte reiterated his campaign battle cry to “recover and revitalize…the lost or faded values (of) love of country, common good, and concern for the helpless and the impoverished.”  Interestingly, in the Philippines, Catholics schools like De La Salle University advocates: Love of God first and love of country second.  But in a multi-religious nation like Singapore, De La Salle in this part of Asia emphasizes: love of country and then love of God.

In Mother Galactica of Christine Page (2008),it is revealed that the Great Mother offers humanity a window of opportunity to participate in the creation of a new era of expanded consciousness from 1987 to 2023. With the Earth and the rest of the galactic planets being aligned with the heart of the Great Mother Galactica, there will be a rebirth of the divine feminine qualities of intuition, emotional creativity, and renewal.  Amidst the hard-hitting posture of President Duterte against drugs, crime and corruption, there is a need for a soft touch to strike a virtuous balance.  It is no accident that Leni Robredo is seated as Vice President.  In galactic cosmology, she brings the divine feminine exemplified by Mother Earth and Mother Galactica.

According to Philippine National Police chief Ronald de la Rosa, top drug and crime lords are raising a P1 billion bounty for the head of Rodrigo Duterte (Inquirer, 2016). This came about as a reaction to Duterte’s campaign to carry out his threat to”kill drug lords.”  In the Law of Attraction, the escalation of death threats will even create more momentum because when consciousness focuses on a subject matter,that issue will gain energy and become stronger.  Hale Dwoskin (2012, p. 141-142) says, “Anything we focus on, we create.  So if we’re really angry, for instance at war that’s going on, or strike or suffering, we’re adding our energy to it.  We’re pushing ourselves, and that only creates resistance.”

With his anti-criminal drive, Duterte can make the citizens antifragile. To do this, he must first make the Philippine National Police (PNP) antifragile.  Borrowing from a Sufi maxim, I say: When the nation is ready, the President appears and when the police force is ready, the PNP Chief appears.  As former panelist of the Police Executive Service Eligibility of the National Police Commission, I recall that NAPOLCOM envisions itself to be a “highly capable, effective and credible police service working in partnership with a responsive community towards the attainment of a safer place to live, work and do business.”  Its mission is to “enforce the law, prevent and control crimes, maintain peace and order and ensure public safety and internal security with the active support of the community.” (PNP Transformation Roadmap, 2030).

Based on the transformation Roadmap, PNP’s SWOT analysis in July 2005 would have yielded the result of a “more capable, effective, and credible police service by 2015.”  The rise of Duterte into power in June 2016 gives the PNP a fresh start to make their vision and mission operational for the next 16 years and achieve its avowed transformation in 2030.  They are key to the progress of this nation and they are key to making the ordinary citizens antifragile.

Again, it is interesting to note the PNP Police Commander Chief Superintendent Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa shed tears for his comrades in the police force when confronted by Boy Abunda on the issue of investigating and prosecuting the five narco generals.  Virtue is balance and suntok by enforcing the law needs yakap by showing compassion and empathy to the person who is suspected of a crime.  If and when the Duterte administration is able to use the suntok-yakap principle in governance, then I say the NP transformation is operationalized and the Harmonic Convergence is taking place in our land.

Duterte and Quantum Politics.  Duterte became antifragile with appropriate presidential brand to a market hungry and angry for change (Go, 2016; Conception, 2016).  With excellent social media utilization, he broke away from his opponents who used the traditional political machinery and radio and television advertisements.  He was perceived as a hoi polio from the province, but he was presented as a timely product and content packaged to fight drugs, corruption, and criminality – an antidote to Daang Matuwid.

According to Dator, Pratt, and Sea (2006), reforms in governance today “are cosmologically inadequate because they are all based on old ‘Newtonian’ notions of causality and intentionality. It is essential that new forms of governance be based on what the best science and humanities of all cultures can tell us about human and other systems, artificial as well as natural…They are technologically inadequate because they were invented at a time when communications technologies were quite different from what they are now—initially limited to human speech and handwriting, later augmented by the very labor-intensive and slow printing presses of the day. At that time, literacy was low, books were few and rare, and newspapers had little more than a few pages of local announcements and opinion.”
Dator describes quantum politics in terms of cosmology and technological innovations of the 21st century.  He says, “[I]n a normally operating society, there is a close relationship between dominant cosmology, the dominant technology of the time, and the social institutions and social values of the group.  That relationship has characterized almost all societies up until probably the 20th century.  What happened in the 20thentury is that a new cosmology called quantum physics – and the new technologies of the electronic information and communications revolution – became out of sync with many social institutions and practices specifically with governance systems, which are still very much locked into technologies of 200 years ago.” (Dator, 2009).

Duterte’s election used antifragile communication amid the election campaign pandemonium through  social media in the Internet. According to Madang (2016), Duterte “is the first to recognize the decentralized nature ofour soul as a country…This very nature is reflected on the Internet and blogosphere, where some of the most passionate, dynamic, sincere and nationalistic influences come together…The real battle boiled down to: political machinery (Binay and Roxas) versus communications groundswell (Duterte)…For the longest time, election was always won by political machinery. This year 2016 changed that.”  The Internet, as communication media, mirrored Duterte’s radical transparent persona and his antifragile communication brand, spiked above the rest of his opponents and exposed his reputation and character as mayor of Davao City.

When he became mayor 30 years ago, Davao, “a sprawling city, was a no-go zone for many Filipinos – a cauldron of insurgents, jihadists and gangsters. Duterte turned the city around…His antics drew comparisons with rule-flouting Hollywood vigilantes such as ‘the Punisher’ and ‘Dirty Harry’.” (Campbell, 2016).   Viewed as a late and weak contender for the presidential race with “least amount of time, budget, and preparation” (Conception, 2016), he shocked and amazed many with his victory.  According to Josiah Go (2016), “The May 9, 2016 presidential election was the most vicious in recent memory, if the insults and tirades against all of the candidates are any indication…It became harder and harder for other candidates to bring him [Duterte] down. The anger of the people was enough reason to turn a deaf ear to Duterte’s foul mouth.  This angry segment who wanted instant solutions and quick fixes even helped promote the battle cry: Change is coming.”

Duterte’s Antifragile Character
A Yahoo2016) definition of character is “the wholeness of a person defined by his/her integrity, morals, soundness, trustworthiness, strength against corruption, and faithfulness to God!” Another is“that which is determined by individual integrity and adherence to values found through moral soundness!”
In the fourth quadrant of Brian Hall’s values development, “word” signifies “influence on the hearers to execute action”.  For a politician, I say character is putting his words into action, after he is elected.

President Duterte’s political character is expressed in his inaugural speech, when he asked a rhetorical question that showed his character: “I am here because I love my country and I love the people of the Philippines.  I am here, why?” Because I am ready to start my work for the nation.  When words become action, the level of personal development rises to the highest fourth quadrant of values.  In this quadrant, word means “the ability to communicate universal truths so effectively that the hearer becomes conscious of her/his limitations such that life and hope are renewed in the individual hearer.” (Hall, Kalven, Rosen, Taylor, n.d., p.86)  If we take Duterte’s words that have been transformed into action, then we know that he is a man of character.

Duterte’s unorthodox communication style and irregular schedules are becoming a headache for the media networks. But they cannot do anything about it because Duterte does not need them to communicate with the people. He has social media. He has his Facebook army who are ready, willing, and able to broadcast anything he says, anytime of the day, to all corners of the world. In Marshall McLuhan’s language: the medium is the message; and Duterte is both the medium and the message; his person and character makes traditional media channels extraneous to his style of governance.
William Blake (1863) in his poem  “Auguries of Innocence” invites us “to see the world in a grain of sand.”  By analogy, I say, we must “see the Filipino nation in the person of a probinsyano from Davao.”  Davao City today is a microcosm of change that can have a “Butterfly Effect” for the whole Philippines Islands.  Babes Romualdez (2016) asks: “Is it possible for a simple lawyer from the province to lead a country to greatness?”  He believes: Yes, It is possible.

Antonio Damasio (2005) in his book, Descartes’ Error, noted that “[T]he comprehensive understanding of the human mind requires an organismic perspective; that not only must the mind move from the nonphysical cogitum to the realm of biological tissue, but it must also be related to a whole organism possessed of integrated body proper and brain, and fully interactive with the physical and social environment.” (p.252). Thus, according to Damasio, the Cartesian hypothesis of “I think, therefore I am” is flawed from a biological ground.  Maturana and Varela (1987) affirmed this, saying that on biological grounds alone, the Cartesian hypothesis is flawed by demonstrating how aspects of human life can arise from biological processes alone.  President Duterte’s mind can be described in Damasio’s paradigm as a mind that moves from “the nonphysical cogitum to the realm of biological tissue, but it must also be related to a whole organism possessed of integrated body proper and brain, and fully interactive with the physical and social environment.”

President Duterte is antifragile because of his reflection-action cycle, the Benedictine ora et labora spiritual dictum and Chinese yin and yang energy that send a “Duterte Effect” on war against drugs; similar to that of a metaphysical “Butterfly Effect”[the flapping of the butterfly in Mount Apo can cause an avalanched in Metro Manila].  Duterte’s pronouncement against drugs was heard and thousands came forward to renew  their lives.

Then he said, “I am here to correct and establish order in my beloved country.  Many will stop me, many will try to kill me, because of my principles and dignity over how to fix this country.  But if God blesses me, and with the people‘s help, I might change this country into one that you will be proud of, and my legacy will extend far beyond the next Filipino generation.“ (Global Friends of Rody Duterte, 2016).  This fits right into Taleb’s (p.74) statement: “What does not kill me kills others” is a new hermeneutics on Nietzsche’s what does not kill me makes me stronger.  Taleb says, “[W]hat did not kill me did not make me stronger, but spared me because I am stronger than others, but it killed others and the average population is now stronger because the weak are gone.”  Political translation of what does not kill me, kills others is Duterte’s presidential victory, which laid all his four rivals to rest after May 9 elections.  Mart del Rosario (2016) in alignment with Taleb’s nuggets of antifragility wisdom said, “I prefer a man who tells a crook, a murderer, a rapist, “I will kill”, than a man who tells the same character, “I will give you due process.“

Sara Soliven de Guzman (2016) concludes, “Our hardworking president-elect, who obviously like no other president in my lifetime, burns the midnight oil, seems to be unshaken by everything.  It is very clear that he has a plan and he wants to get it done…How did he do it? He is wise, very wise – so watch out!”

Duterte’s Antifragile Personality
Tato Malay (2016), based on his study of“personality tests like the Enneagram, MBTI, or by reading books on numerology, astrology, and birthdays such as Birthday Secrets and The Power of Birthdays, Stars and Numbers,” describes the antifragile character of President Duterte:

He has an ability to excel in all kinds of intellectual activities giving him the
edge in debates and discussions, but unless he is inspired, he can become easily
bored and waste his great mental power on petty arguments.
He has a natural sixth sense and can easily detect insincerity in people,
especially if they are playing power games. In recognizing the power in knowledge,
his true potential is realized. He can become the master planner and develop a good
sense of structure, or become a strategist with a foolproof system.
Whatever career he chooses, he may find his natural leadership skills bring
him to the forefront of his profession, and he is likely to enjoy initiating projects.
Being a visionary may lead him to careers such as architecture, photography, or
filmmaking. A natural success with people could be channeled into professions or
businesses that involve him with the public. Ideally suited to education, health,
social work, or law, he finds that his executive abilities are often called upon.
Independent, idealistic, and unconventional, yet pragmatic and determined,
he is often a law unto himself. An inner conflict between to be self-reliant and
wanting to be part of the team is also indicated by the number 28 birthdate. Always
ready for action and new ventures, he courageously takes on life’s challenges, and
with his enthusiasm he can easily inspire others, if not to join him, at least to support
him in his latest venture. Among his many attributes are strong conviction,
resourcefulness, good judgment, and common sense. Although he is success-
oriented, family and home life are important to him. Strong-willed and independent,
he is daring and outspoken, yet capable of being loyal and dependable.
Often attracted to people who are clever and straightforward, he likes to be
frank and honest, but he may need to guard against speaking out of turn or impulsive
behavior that he may regret later. #‎iamkamalayanmovement‬, #‎kamalayanseminars‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
#‎starguru.(Malay, 2016).

Rita Linda V. Jimeno (2016) says, “There is something about President Rodrigo R. Duterte that sets him apart from all together Philippine presidents we have had.  He seems to have the ability to move people to support his causes and go out of their way to back him.  Perhaps it is because people see that he came to his job prepared, with a clear understanding of the country’s major problems and a vision of how to get things done…People are coming together to get involved.  All these make one think that perhaps there is indeed such a phenomenon as the “Duterte effect.”  Jimeno in fact is opening the mind of the readers to a metaphysical reality known as “Butterfly Effect”.  This was first articulated in a paper by Lorenz in 1972 at a conference in Washington, D.C. entitled: Does a Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?  It is happening:  Does the flap of Duterte’s wings in Davao set off a tornado in Manila and the rest of the Philippine islands?

Taleb’s triad (p.24) on the subject of regulation considers rules as fragile, principles as robust and virtue as an antifragile state.  Virtue, in Figure 8, from the classical philosophy of Aristotle is striking the Golden Mean. The mainstream Thomistic definition of virtue, advanced by the Catholic Church, is “an operative habit or capacity of doing good with ease, pleasure and consistency acquired through repeated acts …infused by God’s grace.” (Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 2002).Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle released the mandatory prayer (oratioimperata) on June 19, 2016. Among others, it is prayer for leaders to uphold “true love for the poor, passion for truth that liberates and inspires sincere generosity and simplicity of lifestyle, and spirit of heroic sacrifice and unrelenting fortitude.” (Punay, 2016).

Directed against the culture of death encouraged by President Duterte’s pronouncement against crime, the OratioImperata invokes: Loving God, look with favor on those who rule with authority over us.  Through your loving hands, may prosperity and progress be achieved, may peace and harmony be assured, may freedom and justice be served and may this nation be healed and protected from harm through Christ your Son who is Lord, forever and ever.

It would be ideal for President Duterte to be virtuous (Aristotelian or Thomistic sense) to make him antifragile in order to gain great things from disorder and chaos.

Figure 9. Virtue continuum (Daniel Glade, 2016) Project Avalon Forum  May 16, 2016

What the human rights advocates and the Catholic hierarchy are morally invoking is that President Duterte needs to adhere to the Golden Mean and to the theological dimension of his pronouncements and actions regarding crime and corruption.

But I must warn the readers that an emerging spirituality is coming to the fore where contemporary anthropocentric theologians (Rahner, 1989, 1972; Ebner, 1977, 1975; Gonzalez, 2002, 2006; Belita, 2006, 2015 & Walsch, 2014) veer away from the institutional church and personal revelations are considered source of inspiration that drive action for desired goals and objectives. President Duterte’s personal conviction and commitment to the goals and objectives he was sworn in to do can only be understood within this sacred space which he holds dearly to his heart and soul.  This makes him in Taleb’s language antifragile.
Conclusion

Taleb successfully demonstrated the meaning of fragility, randomness and antifragility through his heuristic cases.  As such, he was able to demonstrate in detail various elements that are operational in Chaos Theory, like randomness, volatility, and vulnerability.  Convincingly, he reinforces the need for change when things reach equilibrium.  To prepare for shocks that bring about disruption and destruction, he prescribes antifragility, not only for survival, but also for growth and development.

Taleb’s on the ground observations demonstrated how randomness and chaos theory are operationalized.  For this reason, he was correct in saying that his book was not trying to establish a theory for in fact a myriad of authors have already articulated the theories, axioms, and principles for every facet of human endeavor in the area of politics, science, medicine, and business to name a few.

Antifragility in the realm of metaphysics, cosmology and spirituality is raised to a higher level.  Ken Wilber’s AQAL framework puts relationship and spirituality as two of the highest categories of personal growth and development.  In this context, for an individual to be antifragile, that individual must develop superior relationship, metaphysically, cosmologically and spiritually.

Antifragility in the business sector calls for moving CSR to a robust level of corporate shared values (CSI) and move further to corporate social initiatives (CSI) if corporations wish their beneficiaries to be antifragile.  The Marxian view on economics is socially oriented and therefore corporations must initiate moves from its current commercial wealth production to that of common wealth orientation.

Corporate social responsibility is a triad for business needs to be robust by considering corporate shared values as new CSR.  In fact, Vice President Leni Robredo recently reminded companies to be seeking the participation of community in their social programs.  As President Duterte takes on the cause of the majority poor, a socialist perspective closer to Marxian philosophy will slowly emerge and drive CSR to corporate social initiatives.  The emerging social concern of government, realizing they alone cannot address poverty, has led China and India to an innovative “mandated CSR.”

Antifragility showed a startling significance of Duterte’s rise into power.  His antifragile character and personality from a spiritual, not necessarily religious, perspective is literally written among stars if we consider that cosmologists have announced the entry of the planet Earth and the whole Galaxy into a period of great change and transformation. No longer are they talking of Mother Earth, but they are looking at Mother Galactica as the Great Mother moving the galaxy into a Black Hole and when it emerges it will be space filled with Light.

President Duterte was presented from the lens of Taleb’s antifragility.  In return, I viewed Taleb’s heuristics and created my own.  The readers have to await President Duterte’s own narrative, story, and heuristics to fully understand him as a person who can be fragile, robust and antifragile in his journey to life as a private citizen and as the highest official of the Republic of the Philippines. He will serve his term from 2016 to 2022.  Braden and Page agree that the journey to change and transformation started in 1986; the new World Age began in 2012 which is the end of a 5,125 year-long-cycle; and the Harmonic Convergence will be accomplished in 2023.  Significantly, the term of President Duterte from 2016-2022 is riding on the crest of great change within the cosmic galactic transformation.  Pastor Quiboloy’s prophecy on his presidency was a revelation from the Universe, as understood by Chopra, Beck, Page and Braden.

Duterte’s character and personality is proven by his successful local governance in Davao City. This success is considered a manifestation of quantum energy described as Duterte Breakthrough by Pedrosa, Duterte Effect by Jimeno and Black Swan by Pamintuan.  His presidency is arresting the breakdown of law and order and afoot is service to the Filipino people and love for our nation.  Chaos Point Breakthrough,Butterfly Effect and Black Swan in the language of quantum physics underscore how thoughts and desires are powerful energies that propel ideas into reality.

We must constantly create good things and they originate from our good thoughts and ideas.  We are living in a very exciting time of great change and great challenges and we must continue to have positive outlook and attitude to bring the fulfillment of our dream of an abundant, prosperous and peaceful nation in the region and ultimately for the whole world. Then, we can say: We are antifragile.

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Green Light
Manila Standard Today
Dr. Emiliano T. Hudtohan
September 29, 2014

Today, I write about the two generals of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.  The first is a Superior General who leads globally the largest lay religious educators in the world.  The second is a Councilor General who is responsible for the operations of the Brothers the Asia Pacific region.

Global leadership

At the Lasallian Charism lecture series of Br. Michael Broughton, FSC at De La Salle University, Manila, he flashed the image of Br. Robert Schieler, FSC, the newly elected Superior

General of the Brothers at the 45th General Chapter in Rome on May 20, 2014. He became the 27th successor of St. John Baptist de La Salle, founder of the Institute.
Previously, Br. Bob served as General Councilor for the Lasallian Region of North America (RELAN) in Washington, D.C. Before this, he was the Director of Education for the Brothers’ United States-Toronto Region, directing the national educational formation programs for teachers and Brothers in the 104 Lasallian schools. He was Executive Secretary of the Regional Education Board and the Lasallian Association of College and University Presidents.
Br. Robert also served for seven years as Auxiliary Visitor and Director of Education for the Baltimore District.

A native of Philadelphia, he served in the Philippines for 13 years in a variety of administrative positions, from Assistant Principal to Superintendent of Schools.
Resilient character

Before I left the Institute in 1978, I was privileged to be Br. Bob’s confrere at La Salle Academy, Iligan City where he taught catechism and history subjects. And he was very popular and well-loved because he was a brother to them inside and outside the classroom. The Lasallian concept of education then was developing personal relationship with the students through sports and co-curricular activities, aside from regular classroom engagement.

His physical endurance clearly showed his character under difficult and trying circumstances.    He had an on and off bout with amoebiasis. Thus, he chose to sleep on a reclined rattan folding sofa to jump-start his position and race for the comfort room. Our tap water in those days came from an underground stream.  Br. Bernie Oca, FSC, Br. Emilio Villarosa, FSC and I appeared to have developed a natural immunity against waterborne amoeba.  But for Br. Bob, it was a different story.  And so, he lived a life of physical discomfort.

That early, as a missionary with temporary vows, he already showed signs of physical resiliency.  This resiliency is a hallmark of his character as a supervisor of De La Salle schools in the Philippines, a scholar of European history, a doctor of education, Auxiliary Visitor of the District of Baltimore, Director of Education of USA-Toronto Region, Visitor of his district and General Councilor for the Lasallian Region of RELAN of USA and Canada.

Regional leadership

Br. Ricardo Laguda, FSC was elected Councilor General the 45th General Chapter in Rome.  Part of his portfolio is to manage the De La Salle Brothers of Pacific Asia Regional Conference (PARC).

Previous to this, he was appointed the 4th University Chancellor in 2010 and officially installed as the 22nd President of De La Salle University in 2012.
In 2006, he was assigned to De La Salle Canlubang to serve as Interim President. In 2007, he concurrently served as the President of the Jaime Hilario Integrated School-La Salle in Bagac, Bataan and De La Salle Araneta University in Malabon.

As a young novice Brother, his guru was Br. Armin Luistro, FSC. Later, he became a novice master himself.  Br. Ricky has a Master’s degree in religious education and a PhD in educational leadership and management. He studied at Harvard University to prepare him for his executive position at various De La Salle universities and his leadership as President of De La Salle Philippines.

According to the 2401 Newsletter, Br. Ricky’s presidency was marked by rapid growth and he left a legacy of Lasallian excellence and service: 23 percent of DLSU students on scholarship as of Term AY 2013-2914, 12 undergraduate programs with Level 4 accreditation, 9 CHED centers of excellence as of 2014, 5 major infrastructure projects launched in 2014, 2 UAAP general championship titles and 1 PAASCU institutional accreditation.

Lasallian family partnership

When Br. Armin Luistro, FSC became the Brother Provincial, meaning he was in charge of the De La Salle Philippine District, he made a historic move to insure a sustainable pursuit of the educational mission of St. John Baptist de la Salle in the Philippines.  In 1999, he called for a District Synod to establish partnership with the Brothers’ lay educators.

This event is essential in understanding of the message of Superior General Br. Bob Schieler who said, “I know that anything that can be accomplished will be done only because of the great Lasallian family that we are all.”  This statement is most significant in the history of the Brothers of the Christian Schools because it was predicted by Br. Gabriel Moran, FSC that religious life is “dead”.  As this unfolds lay men and women are called upon to carry out the educational and evangelical mission of the Church.

The Lasallian family Br. Bob refers to is a partnership of the Brothers with the lay educators.  In 1999, Br. Armin Luistro, FSC, then Brother Provincial, convened the First Philippine Lasallian District Synod. That synod was unique because the Brothers stayed at the background and their lay partners were given the upper hand to fashion the direction of the District in the Philippines.  A Lasallian Partners Council of Convenors was formed to “partake in the decision-making and implementation of the propositions proposed by the Philippine Lasallian Convocation Commission.

A new vision

My logical formula then was: John Baptist de la Salle, a priest, founded a lay religious order with vows of poverty, obedience, chastity, teaching the poor gratuitously, and living in association with each other.  Today, the Brothers, who are not priest but with vows, are creating a new ‘order’ of lay men and women who have no religious vows at all.  The age of lay apostolate in the 21at century as announced by the Second Vatican Council is now.

The call for the most ordinary Christian is to truly share in the mission of the Church, which was once relegated to the priests, nuns, and the brothers.  Thus, the fate and future of the Church is now entrusted in the hands of the lay apostles.

The Generals are leading the way.

 The passage of the cybercrime law engaged the netizens of the Philippines in a star war at a time when Facebook announced its one billion cyberspace followers.  The netizens demonstrated their cyber power by seeding the cloud by assaulting government Web sites. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Supreme Court issued a TRO.  But this cyber issue need not end up in a black hole.  I would rather see it flourish under a Gaian galactic mother whose teachings are just beneath the stars. I would like to see a civil network society whose cyber power will help us evolve our consciousness at the realm of the noosphere [which I intentionally link with our Pilipino ‘noo’].  Let me cite three netizens whose cloud computing show a new dimension of our consciousness.

Sky is not the limit Cyber education potential has neither glass ceiling nor limits in the sky. According to Marc Raymond Co of Simplex Internet Philippines, a marketing graduate of De La Salle College of St. Benilde and MBA FEU-Makati student, “The race is now on for the whole world to evolve its educational system.” He cites the success of Kaplan Inc., the world’s largest diversified education company, for its Earn a Degree Online Program through partnership with various universities.  In additions, he says that learning can be through a “webinar” wherein people from all over the world attend a seminar by using communication platforms like webex.com and webinarbase.com. Lastly, he mentions ‘webcast/podcasting’ as another interactive learning mode that is done in private and online tutorials.




On Sept. 12, 2012, Gigi Muñoz-David and Jess Malabanan of Manila Standard Today reported the Education Department “planned to open cloud computing access to more than 600,000 public schools teachers nationwide.”  This pioneering project of DepEd under the leadership of Br. Armin Luistro, FSC will engage public school teachers and their students in a 21st century classroom in the cloud. As such, they will be seeding the cloud with knowledge and understanding under the watchful eye of an intelligent Gaian mother.

Beyond infotainment Here is how important cloud computing is for my daughter, Julie Anne, global HR director of Unilever.  I quote, “Today we are making personal and professional choices we couldn’t have made without technology.  My parents live in the Philippines, my boyfriend in the US; I live in the UK.  I’ve successfully worked remotely for weeks to balance my life during this interim set-up.  When people say technology changes lives, don’t just think of shallow infotainment via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.  Think how it’s a crucial lifeline for people like me.”

During the London Olympics, she was allowed to work at home in Manila.  Our condo unit became her office from 5 p.m. to 12 midnight for London work schedule, and in addition she was also ‘working’ from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for Unilever Manila. The wonder of it all was that, through the Internet and iPhone, she was virtually managing her business affairs at our condo unit in Vito Cruz.   And while she was with us for two weeks locally, she was also with her corporate family virtually, almost 24 hours a day!

Classroom in the cloud My wife felt that her teaching profession need not end with her retirement.  So she decided to create a classroom in the cloud.  Her life lessons, experience-based syllabi and life-long methodologies continue to evolve as she interacts with her global audience.

Previously, Pearl published two monographs but for her third book, she opted to use the Web site. She says: “Cloud computing has manifested as a Web site www.readerscenter.com.  It is being in the zone; it is being in the metaphysical level beyond the oppressive limitations set for traditional teaching about the immortality of humanity. Cloud computing is just one aspect of the power of my baptism; a belief from my religious upbringing.  The God-seed of diversity given to me at baptism has been empowered by the resurrection. Through the 90s especially when I was sick, I heard-felt constantly the message of forgiveness. I still don’t understand what I have to forgive.  Although life has not been that easy for me, I don’t feel miserable enough to be obsessed by the idea of forgiveness as repeatedly recommended by Michael Tamura, a favorite author.  My Web site makes me feel I have broken the glass ceiling set by society against women, especially those beyond 60 years of age.  The rules have barred me from the academe.  Through my Web site, I have found a more liberating classroom beyond the confines of age and space.”

In a span of three months, Pearl has already a thousand hits from her students, close friends and relatives and surfers locally and as far as Spain.  And so every day, she goes to class by opening her blackboard in the cloud.

Conclusion Cyberspace allows us to experience our humanity in cloud nine.  What drags us earthbound is our bodily ‘weight’ heavily concerned with our ‘mattereality’; what lifts us high up in the cloud is our consciousness that transcends our concerns as earthlings.  This means seeding the cloud.