After 36 years, Arlene Lapuz Ureta still finds fulfillment as a lawyer

By Marissa Bañez

Ask law students why they are studying to become lawyers and, chances are, many will say it’s because they want “to help others.”  Dig a little deeper and you’ll likely find that those law students have a narrow (and probably unrealistic) idea of what that means in the real world where bills must be paid.  They need to see how “helping others” can be achieved in different ways. They also need to see that achieving that dream may require going through a circuitous route.

Meet Atty. Arlene Lapuz Ureta.  Throughout her 36-year career, she has used her prodigious legal talents in the corporate world, in academia, and in the public sector to help others.  Her work embodies the ideal many law students envision for themselves as they embark on their profession.

Ureta climbed the steep ladder of the corporate world, culminating in an eight-year tenure as general counsel – the highest position for lawyers in corporations – for Metrobank, the second largest bank in the Philippines.  Instead of simply doing banking work at the top of the bank’s legal food chain, she capped off her career there by spearheading the exposure and arrest of one of the largest embezzlers in Philippine banking.

Maria Victoria Lopez, head of Metrobanks’s Corporate Service Management, stole about $54,000,000  over approximately 15 years. Lopez lived lavishly in an exclusive village in Quezon City, sent her children abroad for school, and owned at least nine cars.

When alerted of irregularities in loan documents handled by  Lopez,  Ureta came up with a plan with bank officials and the National Bureau of Investigation for a sting operation.  The operation worked flawlessly and Lopez remains in jail today, almost six years since.

Ureta’s operation obviously helped the bank, but it had a far more expansive and significant reach.  Because of her efforts, the Philippines instituted stricter banking regulations and other major improvements in banking security.  Her efforts helped the entire country’s banking industry and everyone – corporations and individuals alike – reliant upon it.  It’s no surprise she was recognized by the prestigious Legal 500 General Counsel Powerlist, Southeast Asia Teams, 2018, as well as the Legal 500 General Counsel Powerlist, Philippines, 2023.

After retiring from Metrobank in 2018, she became a law professor at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, from where she graduated near the top of her class in 1987.  She taught Banking and Financial Laws, as well as Legal Method, and Torts and Damages.  Because she drew extensively from her professional experiences, she helped students see beyond the “book learning” and youthful wide-eyed idealism by presenting them with a realistic and practical view of legal practice.

Before all that, Ureta served in the public sector.  After law school, she was chosen as one of the elite few to clerk for the Philippine Supreme Court.  She then became counsel for the Philippine government as a Solicitor.  She worked on appellate matters, including cases of the Philippine Commission on Good Government, which was tasked with recovering for the benefit of the Filipino people assets allegedly improperly taken by the late President Marcos and his associates.  Notably, she worked on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant bribery case in the U.S. and the arbitration damages case in Switzerland. Later, Marcos associate Herminio Disini was ordered by Philippine courts to repay $50.6 million for defrauding the country.  In 2021, the Philippine Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

In 2022, following the death of her husband, Jonathan Ureta, who was Philippine National Police Brigadier General, Ureta joined her two adult daughters, Hazel and Michelle, in New York City.  Not content to be a retired “woman-of-leisure,” she began working for the New York City Government Asylum Project immediately after receiving her work permit in July 2023.  She often happily works late into the evenings and sometimes even on weekends, finding fulfillment from helping asylum-seeking immigrants with their applications.

As if that’s not enough, she also volunteers with the Catholic church and the Sant’Egidio Community to feed the homeless, serves as a board member of an international NGO to promote access to health, and is a board member and past president of the U.P. Women Lawyer’s Circle, which advocates protection of the legal rights of women and children abuse victims in the Philippines. And, she is the first Filipina to head a regional alliance of in-house counsels in Asia as Secretary General of Asia Pacific Corporate Counsel Alliance.

But if you think she’s all work and no play, one look at her Facebook page will quickly dispel that thought.  She is quite socially active with the NYC Filipino community, including being an active part of the committee that put together a “Hawaiian Summer Feast” last October.  The fundraiser was organized “for the benefit of poor and needy street children and to help the building of churches and the undertaking of medical missions for the less privileged members of society as well as to lend assistance to the unfortunate victims of human trafficking, both in the Philippines and the United States.”

Reflecting on her life’s work, Ureta imparts this advice, especially to young Filipinos and Filipinas just starting out: “In whatever you do, always do your best; find a purpose and meaning in it – how it can help others.”

Lawyer Marissa Bañez is a contributing writer for The FilAm. She has published two award-winning children’s illustrated books – “Hope and Fortune” and “Hues and Harmony” (How the Rainbow Butterfly Got Her Colors).