When I joined Pru 10 years ago, I did not know what to expect. Previously, I was into marketing communications of a five-star hotel, and then of an upscale residential resort and club.

Ask anyone, and they will tell you that working in a hotel is easy-everything is handed to you on a silver platter. And I couldn't agree more; there were always a lot of other people at the "back of the house" who would do things for me at my "request". In the resort, because it was first class, it operated like a hotel.  While I worked to please customers, people within these organizations also pleased me. And generally, we were tolerant of one another. 

But Pru was different. 

From the very start, I knew that behind the calmness impressed by the neutral colors of the first office I knew, there was an energy waiting to be unleashed. And it didn't take me long to get a sampling of how it was to be in its path.

Zap! 

The force was so great and unlike anything I had encountered before. I had worked with two hotel General Managers, a Resident Manager, two CEOs, and met with government leaders, even curtsied to the Princess of Thailand. But the vitality emanating from the management and  agency leaders of Pru was incomparable. And their eyes had only one message in them, "We are passionate in what we do."

And I felt for the first time how it was to be truly exacted. It was difficult.  But I was rapt.  And so started my journey in Pru.

Everyday was an unfolding to the character of the Men and Women of the Pru. They're tough, they're surefooted, they're driven. They will not stop at anything to get the sale closed, regardless of what stands in the way. 

To say the least, life in Pru was dynamic, with so many facets to it. That was until the series of challenges came, one after the other. People were suddenly deluged with issues, with questions, with doubts. While everyone believed that there was always light at the end of the tunnel, it wasn't enough to raise the spirits that have succumbed to the confusion at hand.

Then our new leader came.

Unity became the first order of the day, bringing to fore the need for a battlecry that would clear the mist that has thickly clouded the horizon. Suddenly, things got moving again and starting to pick up steam. 

Somehow, at the back of my mind, I knew that this awakening would come. Because the passion never died in the first place. It has always been there, just waiting for another rebirth.

Now's the time...Gising Pru, Ibalik ang Tapang!

Lora Lee F. Reboton

Editor-in-chief