IT was early Monday morning last week when I received the sad news that long-time friend and work associate, Atty. Alberto “Bert” Reyno, has passed away. Bert succumbed to lung cancer and its complications. He was 72.
I’ve known Bert for decades, starting when we were colleagues at the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). He worked his way up the corporate ladder, from a research aide and to senior vice president over a period of 34 years. Being an economist and a lawyer served him well in his various leadership positions in the organization.
I left the DBP after 15 years and rarely met Bert for the next 20 years or so, only to be reunited again after his early retirement from DBP. This time, it was at the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP) where I served as executive director.
With so much more to give in terms of experience and expertise in development banking, Bert, together with former DBP colleagues and friends, joined the ADFIAP Consulting group, the advisory service arm of the association.
Over his more than ten years at ADFIAP, Bert and I shared many happy memories traveling together, both for work and leisure. He was a stickler for order, transparency and discipline in the way he conducts himself in front of clients for consulting work, as well as in front of participants during training programs he conducted.
My “reunion” with Bert brought about another chance to work together. Three years into ADFIAP, I had the opportunity to start my advocacy work of helping associations here to be more professionally managed and governed that led me to the founding of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives (PCAAE) in October of 2013.
Together with the ADFIAP Consulting team, Bert was one of the incorporators of the PCAAE and personally facilitated its registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also became the mainstay speaker of the learning session on legal aspects of association management which is one of the topics of the six-module Certified Professional Association Executive credentialing program which has already produced 74 graduates since its inception nine years ago.
Being the only lawyer in the Board of Trustees of PCAAE, Bert was also our “go-to” person when it comes to all legal matters on associations. His most recent project for PCAAE was drafting a bill for Congress to recognize association management as a profession under the ambit of the Professional Regulation Commission. It’s still a work-in-progress and may take more time to get it done, now with the void that Bert has left behind.
For these valuable contributions to the association community, Bert stood tall and soared high as a legal eagle par excellence. He will surely be missed!
Octavio Peralta is currently the executive director of the UN Global Compact Network Philippines and founder and volunteer CEO of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives, the “association of associations.” E-mail: bobby@pcaae.org.
