Published: June 29, 2014

Written by Oliver Samson

AFTER over 40 years in the academe mentoring students and holding key posts in several schools, Dr. Ma. Perla Hudtohan, PhD, enjoys her retirement days travelling abroad with her husband, reading books, doing crossword puzzles, and updating her web site with her own articles touching on family, health, well-being and other subjects.

At 71, she is still enthused by the same passion that prompted her to become an educator over four decades ago. After retiring in 2009 and a mild stroke in 2012, she began offering life coaching and tutorials in English writing, English speaking to foreign and non-foreign students, and professional writing.

Born in Iloilo during the war, Hudtohan was studied at Assumption College from grade school to college.

“That’s why I have an overindigestion of nuns and priests,” she said.

Hudtohan finished grade school in 1954, and high school in 1959, at Assumption Convent-Iloilo as valedictorian for both levels. She graduated summa cum laude from Assumption College-Iloilo in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in Education, major in English.

Driven by passion to help in nation-building through education, Hudtohan, at an early age, held the candle for the young to facilitate them achieve enlightenment. This undertaking had contributed to her own development both as a person and as an educator.

“I started tutoring while I was still studying,” she said. “At the time, if you earned P20, you could buy a lot of things. You could buy a good pair of shoes.”

Hudtohan formally began teaching at age 19. She later obtained a Masters degree in Basic Management Program at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati in 1974, and a Master’s of Arts in Public Administration at University of the Philippines Iloilo in 1978.

She took up her doctorate in Education, major in Educational Management at the Philippine Women’s University in Manila, and finished it in 1991.

She complained, however, of the Philippine educational system favoring men to continue their mentoring passion up to the age of 70.

“It’s so unfair they allow men to teach until 70,” Hudtohan said. “But they want to retire women aged 60 to 65.”

Used to teaching “a lot of students” in the past years she facilitated her husband, Dr. Emiliano Hudtohan, turning 70 this October, who teaches students of Business Ethics and Family Work-Life Harmony at De La Salle University in Manila, College of Business.

“I could handle more than 50 students,” she said. “Sometimes I had 64 students.”

Hudtohan taught grade- and high-school students at Assumption Convent, her alma mater, right after graduating from college in 1963. She became the high-school principal of that school from 1975 to 1977.

Her teaching took a breather for five years after marriage to take care of their only child, Julie Anne, who is now a director at Unilever in London.

She was already 36 when Julie Anne was born. She used to have awful migraines, which disappeared after giving birth.

In 2001, she resumed teaching at Assumption College, in San Lorenzo, Makati, where she chaired the English Department and the Mass Communications Department. She also became the school’s college registrar.

Two years later, she taught English and Literature to Nursing and Hotel Restaurant Management students at San Juan de Dios Educational Foundation Inc. in Pasay City until 2009 when she stopped teaching.

Outside the academe, Hudtohan served as assistant to the CEO of Nina International Export and Trading Co. in Makati in the late 1970s. She was also assistant manager at Fun Fare Co. in Iloilo City.

She coedited the Asin at Liwanag newsletter of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Malate.

Her tours abroad included Wimbledon, Singapore, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Sydney, Rome, Paris and the Holy Land.

“Would you believe I have never been to America?” she said. “But I am very Western. All my books are Western. I like to order from Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.”

But she likes Australia mostly for its cuisine.

The microscopic traces of Ilonggo accent in her speech make her an interesting and jolly speaker in English.

“My routine is three crossword puzzles a day,” she said. “My main activity now is feeding my web site.”

Hudtohan loves reading. She prefers hard-copy books, which have spaces for her comments, over e-books.

She has her own Facebook account, but discourages her husband from having one because “for sure, he will join the complaints against the government and the church.”

She described Dr. Emiliano, whom her mother loved so much, “a very good cook.” She recalled her mother reminding her “Please do not do too much to your husband.”

“When he courted me, I liked him because he seemed he could solve any problem,” she said. “My husband thinks of the world, and I, believe in the power of the individual. He is very kind. He gets angry every two years or so.”

Hudtohan is brimming with ideas. When she puts her head on the pillow, ideas pop up, preventing her from falling asleep. She would turn the light on and start writing.

“When I write longhand first,” she said, “I continue with the computer.”

Hudtohan believes education should start at home. Their only child, who is still single, had learned to read from home when she was still young.

The child should also develop self-respect as early as possible, she said.

“Self-esteem should start right from childhood,” she said. “It’s very important. Young people become drug addicts because they do not have self-esteem.”

Hudtohan also believes that the child should be allowed to have a mind of his own. Early on the child should be trained to become independent.

Their daughter has been living alone since college. They did not allow her to watch TV until she knew how to read.

“Reading is important,” Hudtohan said. “It has to be the mother or the father to teach.”

She reminded her daughter that when the time comes for her to raise her own child, she should not teach about an “angry God” who is getting old.

Their daughter reminds them in return to eat their vegetables.

Hudtohan’s advocacy is to empower the individual, especially women. She uses her web site, now three years old and earned over 8,000 views, to push that goal.

In Photo: Dr. Ma. Perla Hudtohan, PhD, during interview in Manila. (Oliver Samson)