INSPIRING CHANGE

If you want to run for public office, you need to train.” This is one piece of advice Alaminos City Mayor Arth Bryan Celeste learned from his father, Pangasinan 1st District Representative Arthur Celeste, that helped make him the leader and friend that he is today.

“Before [I ran for public office], I would go here [to the city hall] to represent my dad during fiestas, during events,” the younger Celeste shares.

Celeste ran for barangay chairperson of Barangay Magsaysay, Alaminos City, at the age of 20. Growing up, he shares, he was an introvert and can’t even raise his hands during class recitation. However, he was able to overcome this hindrance and himself became an inspiration for others not only in his city but the whole of
Pangasinan.

He opens, “During college, I had to decide what I wanted in life and I thought, ‘Why not try to be a public servant?’ But before I aspired to be one, I [knew that I] had to change a lot about myself.”

Over time, Celeste became more confident and succeeded in his first foray into politics.

“There was one event where I told myself, to challenge myself, ‘Okay, for this particular event, I am not going to read anything [during my speech], I’ll just say what I want to say from the heart.’ And then from there on, natuto na ako (I learned) to become an orator, to become a public speaker, nakuha ko na ‘yung (I developed
my) confidence,” Celeste shares.

His confidence also comes from his father who is “a good orator,” says Celeste. He adds, “That’s who he is, the one I’m trying to emulate in terms of public speaking, because my dad never reads [a speech] and in everything he does, you can see that .....