“We must have something to cling to. Some things must not change.”– Dr Arturo B Rotor

“We must have something to cling to.

Some things must not change.”– Dr Arturo B Rotor

Awarding Ceremony, Introduction of Dr Arturo B Rotor

The Arturo B Rotor Memorial Awards for Literature, Nov 26, 2022

Dr Abercio V Rotor, PhD

Distinguished officers, and members of the Philippine College of Physicians, and PCP Foundation; organizers and participants to the Rotor Literary Awards; guests, ladies and gentlemen.  I greet you all a  pleasant and memorable evening.

What I wish to convey is a message of Dr Arturo B Rotor (PHOTO), 5 years before he died at the age of 80 in 1988. “We must have something to cling to. Some things must not change.” 

Dr. Arturo B. Rotor was a very busy person, all around and dynamic - a medical doctor, the first Filipino allergist, internationally acclaimed short story writer, horticulturist, musician, and former Executive Secretary of the Philippine War Cabinet under Presidents Quezon and Osmeña.

Dr Rotor was a graduate of the University of the Philippines  College of Medicine and Conservatory of Music, earning two degrees at the same time. His short stories "Dahong Palay" (1928), "Zita" (1930), and "The Wound and the Scar" (1937) were published by the Philippine Book Guild, which won him acclaim. Recognizing his immense contribution to Philippine literature as one of the country's greatest short story writers of the 20th century, Dr. Rotor was awarded the Republic Cultural Heritage Award in 1966.

In 1941, upon the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, Pres. Manuel L. Quezon established the Commonwealth government-in-exile in Washington, D.C. There, Dr. Rotor served as the War Cabinet's Executive Secretary. He continued to serve in this capacity until the reestablishment of the Commonwealth government in Manila in March 1945.

He resumed his medical practice, and in 1948, he published his research at John Hopkins Medicine, about the rare form of jaundice, which was soon named after him—the Rotor Syndrome. 

He served as director of the UP Postgraduate School of Medicine, and was a pioneer of Allergology. To promote allergy/immunology as subspecialty, Dr Rotor founded the Philippine Society of Allergology and Immunology (which was reorganized into the Philippine Society of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology or PSAAI).

While practicing medicine, Dr Rotor continued his literary pursuits. His "Confidentially, Doctor"(1965) column with the Manila Times, and his older works republished in 1973, and "The Men Who Play God" (1983) were all inspired by his experience among patients, with anecdotes and stories of compassion and courage – and humor.

Dr Arturo Rotor died in 1988 from cancer and was survived by his wife Emma Unson, who taught college mathematics and physics at Assumption. Thy had no children.

(Arturo B Rotor, Today in History, Internet)

 

Left photo: Dr Arturo B Rotor (extreme right) attends a cabinet meeting presided by the ailing President Quezon; Right. Dr Rotor accompanies remains of the late President Quezon from Washington DC to Manila, soon after the reestablishment of the Philippine Commonwealth government, with Dr Rotor retaining his post as Executive secretary under President Osmeña.

Three breakthroughs in science and technology within Dr Rotor’s life

· First breakthrough is the splitting of the atom, which led to the invention and subsequent detonation of the atomic bomb that ended WWII, and marked the beginning of the Atomic Age and the beginning of the Cold War.

· Second breakthrough is the splitting of the gene, the breaking of the Code of Life, which  radically changed the concept of life and creation. It opened a new and controversial field of science, Genetic Engineering, which now threatens the ecosystems and the biosphere.

· Third breakthrough is the invention of the microchip and the Computer, shrinking the world into a global village, so to speak, and radically changing the way we live with electronics at our fingertips, from communication to transportation, to the extent of peeping through a keyhole prospects of space exploration.  

These breakthroughs changed the world, and continue to do so on an accelerated scale.  But Dr Rotor warned of the consequences of such rapid and chartless change. He knew that runaway change has very dangerous consequences. He stressed in his golden years, this message, “We must have something to cling to. Some things must not change.” He was 75 then, 5 years before his death. (National Review feature written by Ms Lily Lim.)

                                           Holistic Life

He stood as vanguard in the way he lived, warning us of the ill consequences of the so-called Good Life in the way we live today, the Age of Postmodernism, We are “living tomorrow today” on borrowed time and resources. His advocacy is, "Let’s live as holistic human beings."

Holism is the word for his message. Dr Rotor is an epitome of the four attributes of a holistic life." He is a Neo-Renaissance man, on the principle of "health in body and spirit, psyche and intellect."

· Man, the Thinker (Homo sapiens)
· Man, the Maker (Homo faber)
· Man, the Player (Homo ludens)
· Man, the Reverent (Homo spiritus)

The Little Brown Book, THE MEN WHO PLAY GOD.

The title leads to a study of Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel – The Creation, on the relationship between man and his Creator, whereby the two appear to reach out for each other.

A gap separates their forefingers. It’s like that of a spark plug. it is this gap that the doctor-writers tried to interpret and define. It is this theme that the 25 entries sought for meaning in different interpretations.

The Little Prince novelette by Antoine de Saint-Exupery is a guide to understanding The men Who Play God.  Here is the novelette's summary.

A pilot crash-landed his plane in the Sahara Desert. While he tried to repair his plane, 

a little boy appeared out of nowhere and asks him to draw a sheep.

The pilot learned that this "little prince" came from a faraway tiny planet with three volcanoes. He left a rose. his most important possession. Before arriving on Earth, the little prince visited other planets and met with strange individuals: a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a lamplighter, and a geographer.

He dropped down into the Sahara Desert. He found no friends there, but a snake told him that if he ever needed to return to his home planet, he could take advantage of the snake’s bite. He met a fox that taught him to realize that to know others we must “tame” and be "responsible" to them.  This is what makes things and people unique. "The essential is invisible to the eye," says the fox.

The pilot learned to love and cherish the small boy, He and the boy found a well and drink from it, which saved the pilot’s life. He was about to tell the prince he had fixed his plane, when the prince was talking to the yellow snake about returning to his home planet.  

The prince wished to reunite with his rose. And he let the snake bite him. He fell over into the sand. The pilot did not find his body the next day so he hoped that the boy was not dead. The pilot returned to his normal life but always wondered about the prince and hoped he would return someday.

Who is the Little Prince? What is its relevance to Dr. Rotor’s Message?

 San Vicente, ancestral hometown of the Rotors 

(San Vicente has been declared Heritage Zone of the North (RA 11645 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte)

 

San Vicente Ferrer 17th century church; members of the Rotor clan welcome balikbayan relatives

San Vicente, is a small municipality, two kilometers west of Vigan – the hometown of the Rotors. Our great grandparents lived here during the Spanish period, through the Commonwealth era.  Many of us, typical of Ilocanos, left our hometown in search of greener pasture, so to speak. But true to Ilocanos too, there are a number of balikbayan coming back in search for their roots. Others to die and be buried here.

The San Vicente Botanical Garden beside the old church features a little corner in memory of Dr Rotor and his favorite plant species. A family museum and library includes his writings of short stories: Twilight’s Convict, The Wound and Scar, Dahong Palay,,Zita; Book: Men Who Play God.  We hope to include a compilation of lectures (Biennial Convention of PSAAI), Confidentially Doctor (Column, The Manila Times); winning articles of the 2022 Dr Arturo B Rotor Memorial Award on Literature, among others. 

Balanced Environment is the Key to Good Health

Among the features of the San Vicente Botanical Garden is to bring medicine to the attention and understanding of the people, to help make people healthy in their own capacity, which is perhaps the biggest challenge of medicine today. Thus, the three contending areas of medicine should work together like a tripod.

1. Conventional medicine from which modern medicine grew and developed into today's medical realm, well into computerization and genetic engineering.

2. Alternative medicine, being part of Filipino culture and closest to local remedies, time-tested and practical remedies - the mainstay of folk medicine which caters to the grassroots, with support from government and private initiatives.   

3. Environmental Medicine, the most practical and original to the point of being primeval, if I may say so. Its rules are universal and as natural as Nature’s laws. It is dependent on ecological principles in the conservation of a clean and balance environment

Environmental medicine was born out of the rush of modernization and apparent lack of concern on our deteriorating environment. As we prosper economically, we seem to have forgotten a basic equation of weighing the deleterious by-products of progress, and keeping them out of harm’s way. Basic as it is, we have forgotten the equation of oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange that keeps the biosphere in balance, energy-matter relationship that maintains steady energy supply, organism-habitat balance that protects species and ecosystems, acid-alkaline balance that prevents formation of acid rain, and the like.

 Impressions, thanks

Thanks to Madam Ma Isabel Ongpin for her beautiful article on the Internet “Dr Arturo B Rotor and Emma Unson Rotor: Filipino lives worth remembering,”

I found comfort and inspiration from the contest entries reading and analyzing them while I monitored the condition of my sister, a cancer patient the last four year. I imagined her as one of the characters described in the various stories, being patiently cared by the doctors who wrote their stories. 

Lastly, thank you for your trust and confidence, officers and members of PCP and the PCP Foundation in making me a bridge of your organizations and the Rotor clan, and for including me as a member of the panel of judges. I thank my co-judges for their insightful judging and cooperation. ~

“We must have something to cling to. Some things must not change.”  

Message of Dr Arturo B Rotor then at 75, 

five years before he died in 1988