By Digoy Fernandez

(*Ramon V del Rosario Sr)

When I heard that Ramon del Rosario Sr, or Tito Monching as I have known him all my life, or RVR for the purposes of this blog, passed away, I truly felt a sense of sadness. First, RVR and Tita Millie were long-time family friends of my late parents. Second, my parents and their friends had many shared experiences both professionally and in their subsequent exploits in the field of civic action. Third, I had originally planned on digging up many of the gems of their past activities through personal talks with them, hoping to dredge as many of these memories as I could. Unfortunately, many in this pioneer band of friends passed away one by one even as I contemplated the project.

When the intrepid band of young and idealistic men gathered to form what would become the Manila Junior Chamber of Commerce (now known as the Manila Jaycees) sometime in late 1947, RVR was elected as the charter president for the following year. Then, they chartered several other chapters all over the Philippines, and RVR became a natural choice for charter president also of the incipient national organization. But this band did not rest on their laurels because they then set forth to organize Jaycee chapters all over Asia, including the Tokyo Jaycees and the Japan Junior Chamber! By this time, the Philippine group caught the attention of the international organization and the 5th JCI World Congress was slated for Manila in 1950. In that meeting, RVR was elected as the President of JCI, the first Asian to be accorded such an honor.

(My late father served as the last of the volunteer Secretary Generals of JCI in 1953-53 when the late Roberto T Villanueva was elected JCI President, the 2nd Manila Jaycee to take on the top position in the organization.)

Later on, when I became President of the Manila Jaycees, I had the opportunity to attend the World Congress in Osaka. The Tokyo Jaycees found out I was coming and laid out the Red Carpet. I mentioned that my father knew some of their founders, one of whom was Rei Hattori, the founder of Seiko. It was a truly humbling affair, with this Jaycee from lowly Philippines being hosted by our daughter organization, the Tokyo Jaycees, which had become a powerhouse in the world of Japanese civic action and commerce.

On one occasion when one of my colleagues in the Jaycee Senate prevailed upon me to give a talk on the 1st Tenet of the Jaycee Creed: “That Faith in God gives meaning and purpose to human life”, I did a little digging and found out that this was the theme of the presidency of RVR when he headed the Philippine national organization (NOM). Nor surprisingly, this found its way into the existing JCI Creed and became its 1st Tenet. The original Creed as written by W Brownfield began with “That the Brotherhood of Man transcends the sovereignty of nations”. Thus, the faith of the founding fathers of the Philippine Jaycee movement found its way into the ideology of the international movement.

I grew up with my maternal grandparents in their Nakpil-designed house on Vito Cruz in front of what is now the Century Park Sheraton in Vito Cruz. But weekends were spent in the Fernandez family compound in San Juan, where I saw a procession of my late parents’ friends — a veritable who’s who of Philippine business and society – come to talk, plan, socialize, or even play a game or two. Listening from the sidelines, I learned about their work and their involvement in socially responsible projects. There was Operation Brotherhood, a brainchild of the late Oscar J Arellano – who lived down the street on Guevara from us — that was responsible for sending volunteer doctors and nurses to war-torn Indochina to help alleviate the miasma of human suffering that one finds in a war zone. This movement inspired students to form the school-based Junior Operation Brotherhood many years later. But even before that, I found myself helping out volunteers working in Sapang Palay when it was still a new community of relocated squatters, all trying hard to adjust to life in a place remote from their old haunts and places of work.

Sometime in 1949, almost the same cast of young visionaries who founded the Manila Jaycess then got involved in the foundation of ETIOP, or the Executive Training Institute of the Philippines. RVR provided the leadership of this group, one of the founding directors of which till his death was my late father. They were primarily responsible for bringing the Harvard short program called the “Advanced Management Program” to the Philippines in the early 50’s. Participants were drawn from various sectors from the Philippines and other countries. (Fortunately, my classmate Gilbert Jose was able to borrow the 1st, 2nd, and 4th AMP Class Annuals from his father) I remember going up to Baguio with my father to the Pines Hotel where the participants would be billeted. It was a family affair since many of the attendees brought their wives and children too.

Well, this series of AMP classes that lasted to the early 60s eventually led to the formation of the Asian Institute of Management in 1968, with the first class graduating in 1970. (I belong to the 4th MBM class that graduated in 1973)

The story can go on and on, because of the tidbits I picked up from my parents and their friends. Unfortunately, most of the family memorabilia went up in flames when a fire gutted my parents’ house in 1979. But I was able to retrieve some plaques from grateful governments like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, expressing thanks for the help extended by Operation Brotherhood International, which also led to the loss of some lives while doing their little acts of heroism.

As an aside, my sister and OJ Arellano’s daughter Baby, were sent abroad to study the Montessori method of teaching, and this led to the foundation of OBI-Montessori. (Baby, who just lost her husband Rollie, is the mother of Gabby Concepcion, and grandma to KC.) But that is also another story for another time.