This is my favorite picture of my dad. It’s from a speech he gave before the Asian Federation of Advertising Associates at one of their conferences in Seoul years and years ago.

People who have had the privilege of seeing him speak in public say he was a powerful presence – full of fire, and thunder, and passion, and fury. He inspired people, he made them believe in him, he made them buy into his ideas. I suppose that’s why he was such a great ad man.

I suppose that’s why I try to talk like him, or at least the way I remember how he used to talk, even though it’s painful and difficult for a boy as shy and introverted as I am. He made people believe. That’s something I’d like to be able to do too.

Was Googling his name again. Here’s something I found about him, written by a man named Romy Virtusio.

Another Tony was de Joya, the Tony de Joya. An original, sui generis. Like Lenny, Tony made his mark in advertising (Lenny and Tony worked together early in their careers, in an ad agency), but fancied himself a PR person as well. Many of AMA’s (the agency he founded and owned) campaigns for Nestle were PR-orientated, as well as its work for JETRO (Japanese External Trade Organization). Tony always had the big picture in mind, what a campaign or project can do for Client, and also for the country. Nobody talked like Tony–he was precise, forceful, charming and rather hard to stop. In PR, Tony was one of those who organized the Asean Confederation of PR organizations. The likes of Tony de Joya do not occur frequently.

I don’t know why I’ve been thinking of Papa a lot lately.

I suppose I need guidance.

Almost 15 years after he passed away, he’s still my inspiration.

I didn’t even realize that the eyeglasses I picked out at random on one of my little shopping trips abroad were almost exactly like his. I wonder if that means Papa is passing on his vision to me?