The art of saving according to Lolo Pepe

Long time ago, a year after World War II to be exact, there was an eight-year-old boy in Guagua, Pampanga who had 10 centavos in his pocket. He just came from school and he was thirsty. He was standing in front of a soda parlor and had been contemplating on whether or not he would buy that thirst-quenching, ice-cold Coca-Cola. Minutes later, he turned his back. “I’d rather save my 10 centavos,” he told himself as he slowly disengaged his gaze from that particular bottle of Coke. The eight-year-old boy didn’t know yet what he would become but he was certain that with his discipline to save his money, he would be wealthy in more ways than one.

The eight-year-old boy who had saving savvy is now known as Jose G. Araullo, chairman of the board of The Real Bank, a thrift bank. To the many clients of his bank, he is better known as Lolo Pepe.

Lolo Pepe’s wisdom for saving money has become all the more valuable in these times of economic crunch.

“Saving money is a way of life,” he succinctly says. 

Lolo Pepe is the second of the nine children of Dr. Alfonso and Adelaida Araullo. “My parents were not really poor but because they had many children, they had to really work hard to be able to give us a good life.”

But don’t be misled for “the good life” that Lolo Pepe is referring here involved hard work which was instilled early on by their parents. “That’s how we learned to save. Saving money for the future begins at home,” Lolo Pepe shares.

His childhood is full of frugal yet soulful recollections. When he and his siblings were still kids, he recalls, their father would always give them an alkansya (piggy bank) each. Come Christmastime, the Araullo kids would break-open their piggy banks. The one who saved the most money would get a prize. Little Pepe would always emerge the winner year after year. “My father would always double the money that I saved. That was the prize.” 

And how did he save the most money among his brood? Instead of taking the jeep from home to his elementary school in Guagua, the young Pepe would just walk. He would also walk back home from school, undermining the bantering of his classmates who teased him as kuripot (frugal). “But why would I take the jeepney when my house is just a few blocks away from my house? Besides, I was told early on that walking is a good exercise.”

When he was in grade school, he invested some of his little earnings to have a comics stand at home. He rented out Pinoy comics for five centavos each. He had about 1,000 pieces of comics. When newer batches of komiks would arrive, the young Pepe wouldn’t give away the old ones but instead he would sell them for three centavos each. That way, he saved more.

During summer breaks, Lolo Pepe remembers, his very young and able body then would tend to his father’s fishpond. By helping out, he earned P2 a week. While children his age were agog in buying luxurious toys, little Pepe would be content with just a simple toy and a very good book. His parents also made sure that their children wouldn’t miss out the fun of being kids. But as always, the conscious effort to save was instilled.

“My siblings and I were taught not to spend more than what we earn. We live within our means. Overspending is the root cause of many problems,” he says.

The financial literacy he learned at home at an early age was perhaps the seed that prodded Lolo Pepe to finish Accountancy at the San Beda College in 1959. With the many lessons he learned about managing money, it wasn’t surprising at all that he would become a certified public accountant right after graduation. He worked as an examiner at the Central Bank and soon became a force to reckon with in the field of accounting. He became the president of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountant (PICPA) in 1985 and 1986. He also chaired the Bankers Institute of the Philippines. In 1988, he partnered with another luminary in the industry, Benjamin Punongbayan, to establish the now paramount auditing firm Punongbayan & Araullo. Four years later, the PICPA vested upon him the honor of being the Most Outstanding CPA in Public Practice.

“Not only that,” Lolo Pepe proudly discloses, “in 2001, the San Beda College chose me as one of the Outstanding Bedans of the Century!” Not bad for a guy who became the laughing stock of his classmates because, due to his excessive stage fright, he forgot to deliver his one and only line in their first year college play “The Factory Is on Fire.” 

“The humiliation I got in that play became my inspiration to better myself. I turned that moment of adversity into an opportunity when I saw a banner announcing a seminar in Manila Hotel about “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

The seminar fee was very expensive for a regular student. But the young Pepe did not budge to, again, crack-open his piggy bank so he could pay the entrance fee to the seminar. “Because I was able to save, I was able to attend the seminar.” And the seminar did him good. He was so confident that during their second year class election he stood and nominated himself as president of the class. His classmates sensed the leader in him and gave him the mandate. He became the class president again when he was in third year college. On his fourth year in San Beda, he ran for president in the student council and won. “That was the first time that the president of the student council was not a law student,” Lolo Pepe remembers with a smile.

Lolo Pepe — he loves to be called that way even if he doesn’t have his own grandchild from any of his five sons —was already enjoying his retirement in 2003 when he was asked by the owner of The Real Bank to do some troubleshooting for the banking institution.

 “My goodness, I was asked to run the bank with absolute management authority,” he describes the owner’s request. Lolo Pepe says of the bank, “The bank was not doing very well when I took over in 2003. With its financial problems, my task was to put things in order.” The financial wiz in him surfaced once again and in a short time he successfully turned things around. With Lolo Pepe at the helm, The Real Bank has 24 branches now in Metro Manila, Regions III and IV with expansions being undertaken in Cebu and Davao.            

This time, however, Lolo Pepe knows that financial literacy is not all that matters. So, with his childhood experiences of saving as his muse, he pushes a corporate social responsibility program dubbed “Bata . . . Bata . . . Mag-impok at Magsinop” in cooperation with the Department of Education. The main aim of this program — which has reaped numerous awards — was to bring back the habit of saving among young students.

“It’s very sad that the many children of today have forgotten how it is like to keep a piggy bank. They have forgotten how to save. They are easily drawn to the fad and no one seems to control them. They are not taught that there is nobility in saving, however small,” Lolo Pepe laments.

Lolo Pepe says it has been his practice ever since he was a kid to this day to save 20 percent of what he has. “After 10 to 15 years you will be amazed how much you were able to save and it will also enhance your character because saving is a form of discipline,” he advises.

He adds: “If you inculcate in the child’s mind the importance of saving money, he will have a sense of nobility, of pride. If he can have a bank passbook and keep there whatever small amount he saves, that will empower the child. At our bank, young children and students can open an account with just P100 with interest rate of five percent.”

If one starts saving, Lolo Pepe philosophizes, one becomes ambitious after a while in a sense that one will want his money to grow. “And it should be an ambition of every person to become rich. If one does not aspire to become wealthy, one will never, never really be rich.”

Since Lolo Pepe believes that children should be taught to save at an early age, the core of the “Bata . . . Bata . . . Mag-impok at Magsinop” campaign is the big, skillfully illustrated storybook titled “Mga Kwento ni Lolo Pepe Tungkol sa Pagsisinop at Pag-iimpok.” The copies of the book (which now has a second edition) are distributed for free to very young students in different elementary schools in Manila, Regions III and IV, Cebu and Davao. More books will be distributed around the Philippines to teach children about the value of savings. All stories in the book — which recently won the Bronze Anvil Award — are based on the life and success story of Lolo Pepe as an astute believer of saving money.

“If you don’t save today, how do you think will you survive the future?” the very charming Lolo Pepe concludes.

(For your new beginnings, please e-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. Have a blessed Sunday.)