What would you ask or say?

If you had a chance to talk to anyone you choose, whom would you pick and what would you ask? The question is often raised in beauty pageants, high school events or in the Internet. But just like “beauty pageant statements” most people tend to make politically correct choices.

The usual suspects or choices are Jesus, God, John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, Mother Teresa or one of the dead popes or my favorite, Princess Diana. The questions often revolve on World Peace or what is the way to eternal peace or is their really life after death.

Recently I found myself confronted by the same question although in this situation the “whom” had already been provided in the person of Dr. Lucio Tan; Businessman, Taipan and recipient of many doctorate degrees, But more importantly because of his tobacco empire: Fortune Tobacco.

It was the “what would you ask him” part that proved to be quite a mental exercise.

Foremost in my mind was an idea so far fetched, so counter-culture and simply so against everything that Dr. Lucio Tan or the “Kapitan” is known for: would it ever be possible for Dr. Lucio Tan to intentionally get out of the tobacco – cigarettes business and transform this into an equally profitable but life giving business that promotes quality of life instead of a product that has been proven to be dangerous, addictive and contrary to the value system of one who carries the title “Doctor”.

I’m sure that most of you readers would give an instant “No”. The more cynical would probably do a monologue telling me: Get real, there’s too much money in cigarettes and it costs very little to make. Of course the righteous among you may even say, if the smokers want to kill themselves, it’s their choice. And yes I hear those of you who are saying “ Ay naku, Beltran you’re such a dreamer and an idealist”.

Is it really impossible? I don’t think so.

Successful businessmen and great leaders have many common characteristics one of which is the ability to introduce change when needed. The motives maybe about profit or morals but when change becomes the inevitable and preferable option, they act accordingly.

While thinking through this 2 prong question I was reminded of an equally controversial individual who created a product that brought him a “fortune” so large that up to this day, his name connotes wealth, success and more importantly a high degree of honor and respect. But it was not so in the beginning.

When Dr. Alfred Nobel developed the dynamite as a stable commercially available explosive, he immediately became one of the richest and most influential men in the world. His product was so good that governments used it and armies used it against each other. Later, Dr. Nobel developed even more powerful explosives by combining gelatinous materials with nitroglycerine which is the old world equivalent of today’s, C4.

Alfred Nobel was certainly rich but he was certainly not liked or respected. People close to him even suggested that he use his wealth for more positive things. The worst statement ever made about Dr. Alfred Nobel, was in the form of a premature obituary printed by a French newspaper in 1888 where it said:

“LE MARCHAND DE LA MORT EST MORT” (The Merchant of Death is Dead)

“Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before died…….”

Dr. Nobel reportedly had the privilege of reading his own obituary and finding out what people really thought of him, his achievements and his money. Nobel was so affected by the experience as well as influenced by a lady he loved that Nobel set out to alter his final legacy. He established a multi-million dollar trust fund that now funds the internationally honored Nobel Peace Prize.

From being the merchant of death, Nobel while he was still alive and while he still had a chance recognized that what brought him wealth and influence was at the cost of many lives and the ruin of many families.

Dr. Alfred Nobel along with Dr. Lucio Tan are products of their environment, they entered into a time and a world where science and sensitivity had not yet merged. Nobel was a chemist and a scientist passionately devoted to his craft, but like all scientists or inventors, he did not have a crystal ball that would predict how Men and governments would utilize the dynamite to kill people as well as to dig mines and tunnels.

Dr. Lucio Tan, I am told rose from an oppressed state of dependency on relatives, worked and risked his meager savings and slowly built up his business empire more concerned about “WORKING” and succeeding than being a Taipan. He was sensitive about his limited education and untold memories related to medical attention and hospitals, which is why he has generously poured millions into educational programs, scholarships and medical institutions.

Like Nobel, Dr. Lucio Tan took advantage of what was readily available and affordable to him, tobacco. He did so at a time when it was socially accepted to smoke and when it was medically unknown that cigarette smoking causes kills you.

But now, that Dr. Tan has his billions of pesos, now that he has developed other socially accepted and life giving businesses, and now that he has reached the winter for every man, I wonder if Dr. Lucio Tan can manage to change his legacy and do something even better than Dr. Alfred Nobel.

Can Dr. Lucio Tan walk away from the cigarette business and transform what we know as the Tobacco industry into a life giving agricultural industry just like Taiwan? Can Dr. Lucio Tan establish in his lifetime an equally prestigious body that gives recognition to education, medicine and human relations amongst the ASEAN? Yes he can.

The question is will he?