by Dr. Iain
Corness
The Pattaya Mail’s “Practical Thai Law”
column is written by lawyer Premprecha Dibbayawan, a man who is the
chairman of International Swiss Siam Company and one of the leading lights
in Thai Rotary.
“Prem” as he is known these days was also known as
“Lang” - a nickname he was given at school because of his
Thai/European heritage (on both sides) giving him his clear blue eyes and
“falang” looks.
Prem
was born the 7th of 9 children in a Catholic family in Bangkok. His father
died when he was only 7 years old and money was not plentiful, but he was
still sent to Assumption School in Sriracha. There his grades slipped as
the young Prem was not really interested in taking life seriously. “I
was lazy” was his excuse. For him to go to university it was necessary
for him to go to Assumption in Bangkok but he was scoring so badly that he
was only allowed in to the school as a special consideration after
propositions were made on his behalf.
Even after he finished school, he did not really
entertain the idea of tertiary education, and it was a classmate who
enrolled him into the Thammasat Open University. He passed the entrance
examination and commenced a law course. However, it was not plain sailing
for the young Prem. Financial considerations dictated that he must work as
well and he took a job as a steward in Thai International Airways. It
could be said that he “flew through his studies” but balancing work
and university was not easy. The circuitous route took seven years, but
Prem was rewarded with his LLB degree and with high grades, enough to see
him accepted at the University of Miami in America to further his studies.
In America he worked as a waiter and bartender, the
world’s best educated bar keep, as well as studying English and
Comparative Law. But this work and study was beginning to become too great
a burden and he was contemplating giving up and returning to Thailand when
the Dean of the Faculty discovered him at two in the morning in the
university library. He was told to report to the Dean’s office the next
day, where he was presented with a scholarship to cover his tuition for
the entire year. He was the first foreigner to receive such an honour.
This allowed him to stay on and complete his Master’s Degree.
Returning to Thailand he joined a law firm in Bangkok
where he worked for two years before opening up his own law office in
partnership with another young lawyer. However, after three years he
opened his own solo practice. “Lawyers always want to be independent.
This is normal.”
To escape the stresses of his own legal office he would
come down to Pattaya at the weekends. Scuba diving was his passion, but
the folk in Pattaya soon realised they had a visiting lawyer and were
waiting for him with their legal problems. “I was consulting in my wet
suit,” Prem recalled.
It was only a matter of time before he opened up his
first law office in Soi Yodsak, the street which in those days also had
the city hall office. There were no legal firms in Pattaya at that time
and this was such a momentous occasion that city hall wanted to close off
the street to celebrate the opening.
However, it was still a limited market, so he took
consultancy positions for other law firms in Bangkok until he was asked to
be head of the legal department for a bank up there. This meant the
majority of the week in the capital and weekends in Pattaya. “I was
quite busy, but I was young. I even worked (as a lawyer) on the dive boat
off shore.”
In 1987 he gave up full-time work with the bank in
Bangkok and reduced his commitment to three days a week (plus his weekends
in Pattaya). To fill up the time he became a charter member of the Jomtien
Pattaya Rotary Club, taking the reins as president the following year. His
commitment to the ideals of Rotary is still very strong, becoming the
district governor in 2000-2001.
I asked him just how did he work out his time
management, to which he replied, “There is no Saturday or Sunday. There
is no more diving, in fact, I don’t even know if I can swim any more.”
Success for this hard working man is the ability to be
of service to others. This way of thinking he ascribes to his upbringing
as a young Catholic, where this was instilled into him. He remembers with
much fondness a Spanish cleric who showed him the path of personal
devotion, a man who one day walked 5 kilometres to visit Prem in hospital.
That same cleric also summoned him down to Sriracha when Prem was slacking
in Bangkok, theoretically out of his jurisdiction. “He slapped me very
hard,” said Prem, but he harbours no resentment over the incident, and
even called his first son after him.
With work taking up so much of his available time, his
only hobby these days is gardening, which he does in the early mornings
before work. Even there he uses his garden as an opportunity to serve,
inviting all the neighbours to come and take vegetables whenever they need
to.
The study of law may not have been an easy choice, (he
still has to study to keep up with the changing face of legal
requirements) but for Prem, law was a good choice, “Because I know I
couldn’t be a priest,” (a vocation he had once considered), “but
they laughed at me and told me to go away.”
Prem would like to retire, being now 62 years old,
“But I am not sure I could sit at home and do nothing.” I do not
believe there would be any chance of that either!
