Basic Ally

The photo you see above is of former Basic Advertising employees. Three are now executive creative directors in their respective agencies. Two are presidents of agencies. One is now a TV commercial director and screenwriter.

Back in college, despite having a semester of advertising, I was never interested in making commercials. They promote lies and seduce subliminally, I thought. But after two and a half years working at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and almost a year at Radyo Veritas, I was invited to join Basic Advertising by the chairman and CEO himself, the late Antonio R. Mercado. And the rest, as they say, is history.

To this day I never really looked at advertising like it was the one thing that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I find brainstorming and generating ideas fun. I like playing with words. And shoots always come with lots and lots of food. But I also keep a healthy detachment from it—I never really got into all these posturing of “Hey, I’m creative!” by dressing up the part (usually black is the default outfit), and awards, while great to receive, were never really a personal priority.

What still amazes me even up to now is how “unplanned” my life has been. But despite the seeming lack of direction, I’ve been blessed with people and experiences. The good, the bad, the ugly—they all helped shape me into who I am today. And looking at the photo above (taken during the last Ad Congress; more than six years have passed since we worked under one company), I realized how people can come and go in your life but they’ll always leave a mark on you. And the really important ones, the ones who matter, even if they do go away, will never really leave you.