Ako Rin: The JCI Manila Experiences We Have More in Common Than We Think

SB JM could have introduced himself with a résumé.

He could have listed the positions he had held, the projects he had handled, the businesses he had worked in, or the years he had spent in JCI.

Instead, standing before members of JCI Manila during the Know Your Candidate Forum on September 24 at Vikings, SM Mall of Asia, ALAB standard bearer John Michael “SB JM” Santos introduced himself differently.

He asked questions.

Who among the members works in the family business?

Hands went up.

SB JM had a simple response.

“Ako rin.”

He shared that he had been working in their family business since 2011, giving him firsthand experience of what it means to work within an enterprise built by one’s family.

He spoke about a situation familiar to many second generation businessmen: being part of the business, but not necessarily being the person who makes the final decisions.

“We don’t have a voice in the decision making,” he said, describing the experience of younger members working within their respective family businesses.

Then came another question.

Who among the members had tried starting a business of their own?

Again, SB JM placed himself among them.

He talked about the struggle of building something independently, when income is uncertain and making ends meet becomes part of the entrepreneurial experience.

For SB JM, these were not hypothetical examples of the members he hopes to lead.

They were experiences he knew himself.

Before the Candidate Was the Member

Perhaps the most revealing part of SB JM’s introduction came even earlier.

He brought the audience back to 2017, when he was still finding his place inside JCI Manila.

He recalled attending a GMM where he barely knew anyone.

Instead of describing the chapter from the perspective of someone now seeking its highest office, SB JM described what JCI Manila once looked like from the other side: through the eyes of the member who walks into the room without a circle.

He remembered simply wanting to go home because he felt he did not know anyone.

Years later, that memory remains important enough that it has found its way into the platform he is presenting for 2027.

As SB JM would later tell the room:

“It is easy to feel lonely in a membership of 600.”

A member can attend a GMM, he argued, without necessarily meeting anyone.

It was a striking admission from someone seeking to become president of the country’s largest and most established JCI chapter.

Before SB JM became a candidate asking members to trust him with JCI Manila, he was once the member who walked into a JCI Manila event and felt alone.

The Businessman Who Knows the Struggle

SB JM then used entrepreneurship to establish another point of connection with the room.

When he asked who among them worked in family businesses, he was not merely conducting an informal survey. He was describing one chapter of his own life.

When he asked who had attempted to establish businesses themselves, he again spoke from experience.

His central point was unmistakable: he knows what it is like to work within a family enterprise, and he knows what it is like to attempt building something of his own.

That distinction matters.

Working for a family business can mean inheriting an existing structure while still having limited authority over it. Starting something independently presents another challenge altogether, where the entrepreneur carries the uncertainty personally.

SB JM presented himself as someone who had experienced both.

And rather than separating those experiences from JCI, he connected them directly to what members should be getting from the organization.

By the end of a JCI year, he said, a member should be able to say:

“I became a better leader. I became a better businessman.”

The Leader Who Also Gets Tired

Then SB JM turned his questions toward another group in the room.

Chairmen. Commissioners. Members of the Board of Directors.

How many of them, after everything they had done for JCI Manila, could say that they were tired?

It was another moment of recognition.

Behind every project, meeting, event, and accomplishment are members who give their time and energy to the organization, often while balancing businesses, careers, families, and responsibilities outside JCI.

SB JM was not presenting leadership as something experienced only from the stage. He was acknowledging the work behind it.

The meetings. The preparation. The projects. The responsibilities. The pressure to deliver.

And once again, his message was rooted in shared experience.

The candidate standing before them was also a member who had been asked to work, organize, travel, build, and carry responsibilities for the organization.

That became the recurring message behind his opening.

Who here has experienced this?

Ako rin.

From “Ako Rin” to a Membership Focused Presidency

Those questions eventually led SB JM to his platform.

They were not simply an icebreaker.

The experiences he described were connected to the platform he was proposing for 2027.

His answer was a presidency centered on the membership experience.

It explains why his platform begins not with projects, awards, or organizational statistics, but with stories.

The member story asks whether JCI Manila made someone a better leader, businessman, husband, father, or individual.

The brotherhood story asks whether a member found genuine friendships and relationships inside the organization.

The sister chapter story asks whether JCI Manila helped another local organization become stronger.

And the community story asks whether the people JCI serves can genuinely say their lives became better because the organization was there.

The connection between his introduction and his platform is difficult to miss.

SB JM began by asking members to recognize themselves in his experiences.

Then he proposed a JCI Manila where the organization becomes more deliberate about recognizing the experiences of its members.

A Candidate Introduced Through Shared Experience

Leadership introductions often begin by establishing credentials.

SB JM’s introduction at the Know Your Candidate Forum took another route.

He established common ground.

The member who once attended a GMM without knowing anyone.

The son working in a family business without always having the final say.

The entrepreneur who knows the difficulty of starting something himself.

The JCI leader who understands that service and leadership can also become exhausting.

Instead of saying, “This is what I have accomplished,” his opening effectively asked something else:

“Sino dito yung nakaranas nito?”

And repeatedly, his answer was:

“Ako rin.”

That may also explain why his pitch for 2027 revolves so heavily around membership.

For SB JM, the member he wants JCI Manila to serve next year does not appear to be an abstract person somewhere among the chapter’s hundreds of names.

At different stages of his own journey, he has been that member himself.