BY BÜM D. TENORIO JR.
If lawyer and businessman Albert Arcilla’s life were a ride, it would be a chill drive — a journey on a road paved with obedience, faith and the pursuit of happiness.
Obedience opens opportunities. The present life and work of lawyer Albert Arcilla, a bigwig in the automotive industry, subscribe to obedience. It’s the air he breathes.
And if it were food, he would subsist on obedience.
His fidelity to obedience is akin to his fidelity to his faith. “Faith in God and faith in my family. Those matters are big to me,” says Albert, who prays the rosary every day because he is a Marian devotee.
“Before, I had to wake up and grab my rosary. Now, I have it on my iPad so I let the rosary play while I’m fixing the room. Before, when I was younger, I had to sit still and pray. Now that I’m older, I realize that I should be praying all the time; my spirit is praying all the time more than my body is,” he says, adding that obedience to God is responsible for all that he is now.
Obedience is a big part of Albert’s constant and consistent growth. He first learned it at home. He says with conviction that those who are obedient to their parents reap the rewards of a life worth celebrating.
True enough, of all the 10 Commandments of God, only the Fifth Commandment has a promise: “Honor your father and mother; that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Albert, early on, is aware of this.
Obedience to parents
“My obedience to my parents has brought me good opportunities. I was blessed to have a father who planned my life. I became a lawyer because my father said it was the path I had to take. Because all the men in our family are lawyers,” says Albert, adding that if he had his way, he would have been a doctor, an engineer or a writer. But eventually, he was certain of his childhood dream: to obey his parents’ wishes and make them happy. And never did he regret following them.
“I just wanted to please my parents,” says the grateful Albert. His late father, Calvin Arcilla, was a CPA-lawyer from Catanduanes. His 87-year-old mother, Elsa Braganza-Arcilla, instilled discipline in him.
Albert is a product of three of the best schools in the Philippines. He spent his elementary and high school years at La Salle, took his pre-Law course (Economics) at the University of the Philippines and entered Ateneo de Manila University for Law.
“To be independent, to be responsible, those were the lessons my parents taught me,” he says. Those lessons were his ultimate matriculation in life at UP while staying at Kalayaan dormitory for one year and at Molave dormitory for three years. Among his siblings, he was the only one who did not have a car in college. Those life lessons, to this day, he muses, are the best gifts he received from his parents.
A government lawyer first
Albert, who specializes in Corporate Law, knew that pleasing his mother and father would bring him to the safe side of life — and it would mean affording him happiness. And yes, he found happiness in his first job while serving the government as a lawyer.
In 1989, he was assigned as a legal technical assistant to Peter Garucho, then Tourism Secretary under President Cory Aquino. Eventually, Garucho became Trade Secretary and he brought Albert with him to DTI. When he became Executive Secretary under President Ramos, he took Albert again and the young lawyer ended up in Malacañang for a year and a half (1992 to 1993).
In 1994, when Garucho returned to the private sector, Albert sped off to other possibilities, so to speak, and became the lawyer who was hired to negotiate and get the distributorship of Volvo in the Philippines. It was an octane-laden happiness that he got with the decision to join the automotive industry.
Happiness — be it with his family, his colleagues, or his faith — is important to Albert. He is obedient to the happiness of his heart. His full potential, he says, does not function when there’s negativity in the air. If his life were a ride, it would be a chill drive.
Obedience & consistency
“I’m really not a risk-taker by nature,” he says. “I don’t know if it is my virtue but I have no ego. I’m very happy with the few friends that I have and I respect everyone’s point of view. Even before, I’ve never had a sense of self (but) I’ve always had a sense of others. That is probably why I am drawn into fields where I always have to think of how others would feel, or what would the result be,” he says.
Because of obedience, lawyer Albert Arcilla has always stayed on the safe side — be it on the road where he takes his car or on the road of life.
“The truth of my history — both in personal and professional life — is always rooted in obedience,” he begins. “I’ve worked for Volvo for 29 years. I have worked for Chevrolet for close to 14 years and we were very responsible for growing the MG brand for five years. Those opportunities I will carry [with me] whatever I do in the future, wherever I will be.”
How did Albert change the automotive game in almost three decades? His obedient nature plays a big part in “changing the landscape of the automotive industry.” Obedience to consistency in service is what his brand is known for, he says.
“We have always been very consistent. We changed the game because we were not regular salesmen. We were not the regular sales company. What we did was to remain consistent that we were there to serve our clients and it was a consistent thing. I’m always proud of that.
“What I took a major part of in the company is putting the soul to the brand. A car is a car, it brings you from one place to the other. It’s all mechanical. Lalo na ako (Especially me), I’m not even a car guy. For me, a car is a car. What makes it different? It’s the soul. There’s soul in the brand and we maintain consistency,” he explains, adding that in the beginning of his career in the car industry, he was always being introduced as “the youngest car executive in the Philippines.”
“Now I’m introduced as a veteran in the industry. From being the youngest, I’m now being ‘progressive,’ the most progressive executive in the automotive industry,” he recalls. His “progress” is born out of his being “collaborative.”
“As a corporate citizen, I’m very collaborative. By nature, I am not a risk-taker. So the risks that we take (in the company), we take as well-thought-of risks. Mainly because of what you learn from law school. Everything has to be rational. Everything has to be balanced and you take a position based on how you understand the case, the situation, the people you work with. I think the discipline of law school really taught me a lot about my style of management,” he concludes.
Photography by Myk Yco
Grooming by Floe Tapayan
