Donnie Tantoco, eldest son of Rico and Nena Tantoco, talks about his father’s parenting style and how it has shaped him to become the man and father that he is today to Nicole, Camille and Christian.
By Alex Y. Vergara
Donnie Tantoco and his siblings grew up and were shaped not with lectures and the absolute power and blanket authority a father typically wields over his children. Instead, Donnie, president of Rustan Commercial Corporation and chairman of Lakehall and the eldest son of Rico and Nena Tantoco, learned a great deal from his dad through stories and “positive” examples.
“He knows that we’re watching his actions more than we are listening to his words,” he says. A very good storyteller, Rico, president of Sta. Elena Golf Club, Inc., loved to tell his children stories, which were opportunities in themselves for him to weave the values he wanted to instill in Donnie and his siblings.
Unlike not a few fathers belonging to his generation, Rico didn’t impose his will and his ways on his children. Turning them into his clones was farthest from his mind.
“I almost feel as if he felt that God had a plan for him and a very different one for me. So, his role was to help us to obey God’s will,” Donnie shares.
Corollary to this, one of the first and best things he learned from his dad was obedience. Rico, who was very obedient to his parents, didn’t deprive his kids of their independence, but because of his examples the freedom Donnie and his siblings “have to choose is to choose to obey.”
“The kind of obedience I saw him demonstrate, including and especially to God, was loving obedience. Know your duty and do your duty. The way I saw it, he was not complying. He was committing! It wasn’t so much about duty as it was about desire.”
Donnie defines “loving obedience” as using our cultivated freedom to obey. At the end of the day, living should not be centered on ourselves but towards a purpose greater than ourselves.
When he became a father himself, Donnie took a leaf from how Rico raised them. By being a storyteller instead of a lecturer to his children Nicole, Camille and Christian, Donnie believes he also became an effective communicator and role model to them.
“My dad’s greatest gift to me was his trust, his confidence, his encouragement. He also does not give handouts. He does not like to spoon-feed. When I am in trouble he resists the temptation to jump in and save me. I know he is there to watch my back, but at the same time he wants me to experience the kind of pain that will enable me to build my own muscles.”
During a recent business crisis Donnie faced, Rico reminded him that his “first” duty was to the company’s employees. When all is said and done, they’re the company’s most important stakeholders.
“My dad’s mindset made me intentional about building a company that is an ark,” he says. “An ark is only as strong as the people of our organization, but it is supposed to use its strength to also protect the people from the inevitable storms, pandemics and tsunamis of business journeys and life. When our co-workers feel cared for, are held accountable and feel significant, productivity soars.”
Donnie’s kids have taken this ark to another level. They have taught him something more powerful than an ark, which is community underpinned by a strong economic system.
“My dad wants me to have a humble and good heart, but he also wants me to be a warrior with the muscles that we need to do good works in a sometimes ruthless world. He absolutely hates arrogance and selfishness. Our gifts, he reminds me, are meant to be used for selfless service.”
Each generation is a product of its own time. Rather than be guided solely by “pure duty,” Donnie’s children were encouraged to follow and explore their curiosities in the hope that this will “serendipitously lead them to their calling and their passion.”
Donnie and wife Crickette want their children to find their “path of purpose.” “Because when you are in that path, pain becomes meaningful pain,” he says. “It may not even feel like pain. Perseverance becomes much easier. You can face setbacks and rejections more resiliently and purposefully when you have a clear North Star.”
He adds: “We also don’t want them to fear failure and rejection. We will be judged for our failures and maybe even ridiculed. But we don’t need to be deeply affected by all that. We don’t need to be risk-averse because of that. Be integrated into the society that will judge and reject us, but also be independent so that you can help shape and build a better society.
“Knowing your duty, and being obedient to it, for me, now means to help my kids find their purpose, be super comfortable in their own skins, and make that choice every day to use their gifts to make their highest contribution according to their purpose.
“I also wish for them to have a very close and stable relationship with God, and a close and stable relationship with themselves.”
And how does Donnie see his role these days now that his children are all adults, two of whom – Nicole and Camille – have families of their own? “Dads are like coaches, mentors. We are bridges that inspire them to be in union with God. Dads are also sometimes insurance versus the unexpected risks and external shocks of the world that they are not yet strong enough to withstand.”
