Dean Dr. Reynaldo A. Bautista Jr. receives the 4 Palmes of Excellence on behalf of RVRCOB

This award, though very much welcome, raises challenging questions for reflections. How does a become school with international influence become a global force for good? The answer requires looking beyond our own achievements to learn from institutions that have wrestled with this question too.

Ancient Yet Agile

The convention, with the theme “Bridging Purpose and Performance: Business Education as a Force for Good”, opened with Professor Himanshu Rai’s remarks and keynote. As the Director of IIM Indore, he explained the role of Indore and his business school in contributing to India’s nation-building efforts. His institution holds Triple Crown accreditation, ranks among the world's top 1% of business schools, and sits on a 193-acre campus, and plays a vital role in the development of Indore. With the efforts of the local government, the school, and the citizens, Indore has been recognized as the India’s cleanest city for seven consecutive years.

Moving to his keynote, Rai chose to ground ethical leadership lessons on Vedic wisdom and ancient Sanskrit texts. Rai connected Vedic wisdom to concrete leadership failures he'd witnessed: leaders who lost themselves in performance metrics, who deflected accountability when decisions went wrong, who operated below their capacity because they feared failure more than they valued excellence.

Rai calls IIM Indore as "ancient yet agile." The phrase captures something we need to understand. The school doesn't treat its cultural heritage as decoration or as separate from "real" business education. Indian wisdom isn't an elective. It's the foundation that shapes how they think about leadership, how they structure experiential learning programs, and how they evaluate what counts as success. The Vedas and the Indian heritage are taught as business education, not alongside it.

The case of IIM Indore is fascinating in its paradox: it honors its tradition, yet it is considered a top global school of tomorrow. How can Filipino business schools learn from this example? At RVRCOB, we have something similar: our Lasallian tradition and our Filipino values. But do we teach them as business education or merely adjacent to it?

Harnessing our Culture and Values

Context-wise, the Philippines and India share characteristics. Large populations, rapid growth, collectivist cultures, family business dominance. Colonial histories creating tension between indigenous wisdom and imported models.

What if Philippine business schools integrate our respective values with our cultural heritage? What if RVRCOB combines Filipino concepts with Lasallian pedagogical discipline?

Filipino psychology and philosophy provide rich cultural resources. The most relevant to management, I think, are the Filipino constructs I would label as "DKL" (in part because it can be read as “dakila”)—diwa, kapwa, and loob. Loob represents the inner self, the seat of volition and authentic conviction. Kapwa captures our relational nature, the recognition that self and other are fundamentally interconnected. Diwa points toward collective consciousness, the spirit that animates groups and organizations.

Similar to how Rai drew from the wisdom of the Vedas, DKL describes how Filipinos actually experience and navigate the world. A manager who cultivates loob develops genuine conviction rather than performing what they think leadership should look like. A leader who practices kapwa builds organizations where people matter as people, not as human resources. An institution animated by diwa serves purposes that transcend narrow institutional interests.

DLSU's Lasallian Reflection Framework already provides a structured approach to values-based practice through Masid-Danas (See-Experience), Suri-Nilay (Analysis-Reflection), and Taya-Kilos (Commitment-Action). These aren't just steps in a process. Masid-Danas means being mapagpansin, genuinely attentive to what's actually happening, not what theories predict. Suri-nilay goes deeper than standard analysis, malalim, seeking integrated understanding by engaging intellect and intuition together, the capacity to grasp situations holistically, to see patterns that pure logic might miss, to develop insights then validate them iteratively. Taya-kilos is where discernment becomes action, may pananagutan, completely accountable and responsible, not action for its own sake but movement that flows from genuine understanding.

Global Excellence Rooted in the Local Context

The path forward requires three shifts. First, Philippine business schools need to stop treating Filipino values as supplementary to "real" business education. They are our foundations for thinking about management, leadership, and organizational purpose.

Second, we need to develop pedagogical approaches that genuinely integrate these values rather than just mentioning them. IIM Indore structures entire programs around their heritage, from their Rural Engagement Program to their Himalayan Outbound Program to their workshops on Mithila traditional art forms. What would Filipino business education look like if we took our own wisdom traditions that seriously?

Third, we need to root ourselves more deeply in Philippine social realities. Business education becomes a force for good when business schools become genuine partners in addressing the specific challenges facing Philippine society.

RVRCOB’s 4 Palmes recognition tells us that Philippine business schools are worth recognizing globally. IIM Indore shows us one possibility: a business school that draws strength from its cultural context while meeting global standards.

Our international peers are calling for us. The global picture needs the colors only we Filipinos can add.