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Here is a copy of the letter dated February
1981 from the late Mr. Fukumuro to Mr. V.R. Ayllon:
It was in 1957, as I remember, that I had an opportunity to attend the
meeting of the International Congress of Actuaries held in New York in
October.
While I had free time, I visited the United Nations, which was located
quite near the Congress site, and it so happened that I met two
gentlemen from the Philippines there.
They were Mr. E. S. Sevilla, National Life, and Mr. M. O. Hizon, G.S.I.S.
They were the first Filipinos I had ever met.
We talked for a while with each other. What I found then was that they
knew much about insurance in the United States and Europe, but nothing
about that of Japan. In the same way, I knew something about the U.S.
and Europe, but was entirely ignorant regarding the Philippines.
We came to the conclusion that it is nonsense for neighbouring peoples
not to know each other, and that we should have some system or
organization through which neighbours could become more acquainted. It
was on this occasion that the idea of the E.A.I.C. was given birth.
In 1959 I visited Indonesia and stayed there for about two months. On my
way there and back, I visited Taipei, Manila, Hong Kong, Saigon, Bangkok
and Singapore, each twice. I met many insurance people at each place,
and found most of them to hold the same idea. |
The first E.A.I.C. meeting was held in Tokyo in October 1962. Mr. E.S.
Sevilla worked hard to draft the statutes and prepare many other
documents. Dr. Y. Kato, professor of Marine Insurance at Hitotsubashi
University, was willing to preside under the name of the Academic
Society of Insurance Science of Japan, of which he was the president.
(For Mr. & Mrs. Sevilla, this was also their honeymoon trip.) The
detailed particulars of the first meeting are available in the
“Proceedings” issued soon after. However, the total number of attendants
from foreign countries, i.e. other than
Japanese, was less than 20 persons.
The second meeting was held in Manila in 1964, and, with the
enthusiastic efforts of the Philippines, it was a very successful one.
The total number of participants from foreign countries, i.e. other than
Filipinos, was several times as many as in Tokyo. The present pattern of
the activities of the E.A.I.C. was established there and was succeeded
for long in the meetings that followed.
The E.A.I.C., I may say, was born in Tokyo, but it was just in symbol.
It was in Manila that it attained substance and manhood. |
