Can I not take people at their word?

The author (left photo, center) receives from presumptive first lady Louise ‘Liza’ Araneta Marcos and APPCU President Jeffrey Ng the Award for Promoting Philippines-China Understanding. The book, China The Way, The Truth and The Life, for which the author was awarded the APPCU. PHOTOS FROM AUTHOR’S FILE

ACCORDING to an anecdote, as a boy, Nelson Rockefeller was asked by his father to jump from the window of their house. Despite his fear, the boy believed his father who, with his arms spread, assured him that he would catch him. But just as the boy was hurtling down, the father withdrew his arms and Nelson went crashing into the ground. Said the father: "That's one lesson you should learn in life. Never trust anybody." And armed with that advice, Nelson grew up to be a materially successful man to whom, as one account puts it, "the mere making of money never interested him much, perhaps because he had always had such a surfeit of it. His money — combined with the power and influence the family name carried with it and the energy and easy charm that were characteristically his from boyhood — helped him get pretty much everything he wanted: great art, high office, other men's wives."