He leaves behind an unmatched legacy
Bienvenido R. Tantoco Sr., patriarch of the family behind the Rustan Group of Companies and former ambassador to the Holy See, passed peacefully Tuesday morning, July 6, 2021.
Lolo Benny, as he was fondly called, was 100 years old, having just reached the centenarian milestone three months ago, on April 7, 2021.
He leaves behind six children—Bienvenido Jr., Nedy Tantoco, Menchu Lopez, Marilen Tantoco, Merl Pineda, and Tokie Enriquez—as well as 21 grandchildren, 40 great grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
Although life is never without challenges, to Benny Tantoco, it is always a summery day, bright, clear, and cheerful. He was curious to the end, always wide-eyed over the wonders of life. Last year, when he found one of his grandchildren, SSI Group president Anton Huang, overwhelmed by pandemic fears, he gave the younger man a gentle slap on the back and said, “Hold your head up high, it’s not World War II!” reminding him that there were no bombs falling from the sky or buildings crumbling to the ground.
With his wife, the late Glecy Rustia Tantoco, Benny built Rustan’s from the ground up. When they founded the department store in 1952 in their San Marcelino home in Ermita, Manila, it was only a trove of things of interest they found in their many travels, which they started sharing with their friends and family and neighbors. Even then, before Rustan’s and the family business grew into an empire, with expansive and diversified interests in retail, real estate, food and beverages, and lifestyle, he and Glecy, traveling the world, had this desire, as their daughter Nedy Tantoco, now chair and CEO of Rustan Group of Companies, puts it, “to make the Philippines a part of the global retail village.” He was considered “the father of luxury retail in the Philippines,” the original “retail therapist” in the country.
Benny Tantoco Sr. was a man who sought connections, even when there seemed to be irreconcilable differences. As ambassador to the Holy See, from 1983 to 1986, he reaped distinctions and honors from the Sovereign Military Orders of Saint John, Rhodes, and Malta, In his career as envoy to the Vatican, he was at the forefront of the efforts initiated by his predecessors that led to the beatification and canonization of San Lorenzo Ruiz, for which throughout his tenure he campaigned tirelessly, making known, particularly to the Vatican community, the miraculous works of the Filipino saint. By his gentlemanly manners, urbane attitude, lack of self-interest, and diplomatic knack, he was also able to smoothen what was then a less than an ideal relationship between the Philippine leaders and the papacy.
What were the secrets to Tantoco’s long, happy, fulfilled life?
“My father lived this long because he believed in life and what he could do in life. He did not stop thinking of ways to make life better,” said his daughter Nedy Tantoco.
“When you ask Lolo Benny about his secret to living a long and happy life, he would say, ‘Always be grateful no matter what,’” said his eldest grandson Donnie Tantoco, president at Rustan Commercial Corporation. “It’s about seeing the gift in everything and everyone and, from a place of gratitude, really trying to be a gift and a blessing to others.”
To another grandson Christopher James Tantoco, president at International Duty Free Shops (IDFS) Morocco, the secret was “his passion for life.” He said you could you see it in the way his grandfather lived, in the way he loved life, and the way his family kept him going.
His other grandchildren share the same opinion more or less. “I would have to say his overall simple yet enormous enjoyment of life and his ever abundant and extending love for his family. You see his eyes light up and smile when his family is around him,” said MJ Tantoco, business development head at Specialty Food Retailers, Inc.
To Noey T. Lopez, CEO at Starbucks Philippines and president at Rustan Coffee Corp., the many meaningful and deep relationships his grandfather had developed over the course of a century was the key to his long life while for Dino Tantoco Pineda, director and board member at Rustan Group of Companies, it was “showing up or being disciplined,” which his grandfather did not find difficult to do. “That was just Lolo Benny. And when we would ask him, ‘How can you keep doing that?” he would say, ‘That’s just what a man does.’”
But Benny’s eldest daughter Nedy sums up his personal legacy best, “My father stood for constant renewal. It is what has made Rustan’s strong and it is what has kept us his family going.”
