Edgar Valentino B. Arcilla worked as a folksinger with the Hyatt Regency Hotels in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney, Australia, for fourteen years starting in the early ‘70s right after his graduation from the University of the East School of Music and Arts, now the College of Fine Arts Architecture and Design. He majored in Advertising Arts.

In Hong Kong, Ed joined a Japanese import/export cargo company. Later, he partnered with an American and Hong Kong trading company that enabled him to travel around Asia and the U.S. On the lookout for business opportunities, he got involved in the building and operating video games machines in Hong Kong. In Taipei and Tokyo, he learned about a new technology which he eventually brought to the Philippines – the pioneering use of fiber optics light in advertising and visual art.

Ed’s business thrived. For almost thirty years, he designed and fabricated fiber optic light signage systems for commercial and institutional establishments under the Treklite brand. In the advertising industry, he was soon called Mr. Treklite. He actively participated in the Philippine Advertising Congresses as its Technical Committee Chairman. He served as the President and Chairman of the Advertising Suppliers Association of the Philippines (ASAP), a member association of the Advertising Board of the Philippines (ADBOARD).

Doing double exposure, as in the photography jargon, Ed has also left his mark in the early ‘90s as an ace photographer. He won four times in four consecutive years, including the top, overall Grand Prize of the Canon Asia Pacific Photo Contest, besting eleven countries and over 12,000 local and international entries. His entry entitled “The Chairman” impressed local professional and foreign photographers, leading his advertising friends and colleagues to call him “Mr. Chairman”. He is a member and former president of the prestigious Zone V Camera Club.

Ed was awarded University of the East’s top 60 Alumni in 2006 representing the College of Fine Arts and in 2008, the Most Outstanding Alumni in the field of fine arts given by the University of the East Alumni Association, Inc. On the 75th Foundation Day, 2021, Ed was among those who received the University’s 60 UE GEM Awards.

Economic difficulties worldwide and in the Philippines affected the fiber optic lighting commercial business during the years prior to 2010. That year, Ed was constrained to mothball Treklite. This made him shift direction from being a businessman using fiber optics in advertising into an artist using fiber optics in visual arts – true to form in self-transformation, from craft to art. In hindsight, now he wishes he had made the shift much earlier in his career.

Ed is currently finishing his graduate studies in Visual Arts at the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts. He is Vice-President, External of the Bikol Express-ion Artists Association, Inc.  Likewise, he is also a member and Committee head of the Asia Pacific Art Painters United Association, Inc.  He is also active as a Director of the Makati Tourism Foundation, Inc., and currently the Vice-President of the University of the East Alumni Association, Inc., and President of the UE Fine Arts Alumni Association. 

Ed was born in Naga City. Both his parents were from Bicol – his mother, Rosario Barrameda Buena was from Baao, while his father, Emigdio Villador Arcilla was from Naga. The family resided in Padian St. in Naga City but moved to Manila when he was 5 years old.

Ed Arcilla: Featured Artworks