Rosemarie Gases, RFP®, is a distinguished financial professional whose expertise is anchored by her credential as a Registered Financial Planner. This certification signifies her high level of competence in comprehensive financial planning, client advisory, and ethical practice standards.
Her professional standing is further elevated by her role as a YAMAN Coach™ with the Personal Finance Advisers Philippines Corporation, where she mentors and develops other financial advisers, amplifying her impact in the profession.
A dedicated financial literacy advocate since 2011, Rosemarie is a “full-pledged seminar-ista,” regularly conducting workshops to empower the public. She founded Finance and Beats to creatively promote financial education and reaches a national audience as a BusinessMirror columnist, sharing practical insights on personal finance and wealth stewardship.
Personal career story and leadership journey
“My career story is filled with rejections and redirections.
Before entering college, I told my parents I wanted to take up tourism course in the college institution where both my siblings graduated. But, I was told we couldn’t afford the tuition fee that time and if my parents will push it through, we might experience financial hardships where my siblings could no longer finish school.
So I asked the administrator during my enrollment in college which course I could take if I wanted to pursue being a flight attendant, and they said Mass Communication. So I took that course. But later accepted I no longer want to pursue this dream.
On my third year in college, I was seeing myself to join an above-the-line advertising agency. So when I graduated I sent my resume to different above-the-line advertising agencies but I received no call backs. I even went to their offices to personally hand over my resume to their reception desks.
I kept chasing this dream for 3 more years.
I continued sending and resending my resumes to those advertising agencies, thinking probably my emails were going to their Spam emails so they didn’t see it.
Until one job interview finally changed my direction in life in which I learned to accept my fate that this dream may not be for me.
We were concluding the interview, I thought to myself that I did well but the person who interviewed me, supposedly my direct supervisor, felt the opposite and said to me:
“You’re smart but I’ll be direct to you. We can’t hire you because you have a weak personality. You may not survive the environment here…”
After that encounter and real talk, I decided to enroll myself to a personality development class.
I asked myself what I wanted to do by then. I felt lost for 2 consecutive years.
I joined an MLM and attended the training of other MLM companies. I met a potential business partner but eventually it didn’t go well. Good thing, I had not invested my money yet.
Until I asked myself one day, where do I want to go? And, what is my interest now?
The answer was very obvious. I just didn’t realize it that time.
It led me to my own personal finance management journey. After reading a book on personal finance management in 2009 (I was in third year college) and attending my first-ever seminar, I didn’t stop learning about proper personal finance management.
My career path was in sales and account management for 6 years until I decided to leave the corporate world and do full-time day trading, and then I met my friends whom I’ll discuss below.”
Motivation to join the RFP program and its influence on her approach
“My journey to become a financial planner started with friends who sought help from me on how to day trade in the stock market. I was making money with most of the stocks I was day trading. For me, it wasn’t skill, I just got lucky as that time was a bull run in the stock market. Because in a bull market, every stock you trade, even the last liners or penny stocks, is going up.
To continue my story, I met with them in a coffee shop. But being a salesperson for years as my career in the past, it became my default to always probe on my client’s specific needs so I can match them with the right product and aside from that I had this urge to ask them their goals as to why they wanted to learn day trading in the stock market.
Most of us thought that making a killing in the stock market will solve all our financial issues, BUT IT WILL NOT. And their financial situation is the best example as to why.
I’d found out that their financial concern will not be resolved by day trading alone.
What was their financial concern?
Settling the issues in their deceased parent’s estate.
So I explained to them that the person who can help them was not the person betting on some penny stocks, but someone who knows well about estate planning and debt management.
Since, I consider myself as a full-pledged “seminar-ista,” I promised them that I’ll help them find someone credible who will help them.
When I got home, I researched for hours online those people who could possibly help them, yet the results I got were foreign financial gurus.
After a while, I stumbled on the website of RFP and found the RFP program with their list of modules including the estate planning.
So I thought to myself, maybe the resource speaker of that module could help them. I should talk to him. But the only way I could talk to that person was to join the program. And since I’m a financial literacy advocate, I considered this must be a a good avenue for learning as well to boost up my knowledge and skills in personal finance management.
And as they say, the rest is history.”
Impact of RFP on investment and wealth-building decisions
“After I graduated from the RFP program and received my certification, I realized that personal finance doesn’t just revolve around saving, budgeting, and investing.
There are components in personal finance management that are often overlooked such as the impacts of taxes in one’s sources of income, the proper use of debt as leverage, the importance of having an insurance, and of course, estate and legacy planning.
Nowadays, behavioral economics and psychology should also be considered in doing our financial planning.
Becoming an RFP, made me realize that all of these must be present in making better investment and wealth-building decisions as these are all correlated to each other.”
Most valuable lesson from RFP and application to her own journey
“The most valuable lesson I learned from the RFP program is to continue learning.
Finance is a broad topic. It cannot tackle everything in only a number of days as the greater part of learning can only be acquired and appreciated through actual experience.
And a cookie-cutter approach WILL NEVER WORK FOR EVERYONE as we all have different needs, goals and money beliefs (Rienzie Biolena).
It is best to always listen and understand our clients’ needs first before giving any recommendation.
As to the question how have I applied it in my own financial journey, oddly speaking I used my own financial situation as my case study during my revalida.
My rationale that time was that, if I couldn’t do it to myself, how confident I could be if I’ll be doing this to others as I’m a firm believer of practicing what I preach. Fortunately, I passed the revalida. Haha!”
Recommendation of RFP and financial advice on shaping one’s financial journey
“Money is emotional. The only way to understand yourself when it comes to money management is knowing yourself fully — your risk profile and tolerance, your money beliefs, your behavior whenever you feel sad, glad, and mad, and lastly your aspirations in life.”