Moneysense, the country’s first and only Personal Finance magazine recently listed the 12 most influential people in personal finance. I was surprised to see my name as one of the 12 because the list includes really powerful and much respected individuals.

It felt surreal to be part of such an illustrious list but I am nonetheless honored. Clearly, the hand of the Lord is at work for this accolade.

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The list includes:

1.   The Lawmaker: EDGARDO J. ANGARA (Philippine Senator)

2.   The Regulator: AMANDO TETANGCO (Central Bank Governor)

3.   The Treasurer: ROBERTO B. TAN (Treasurer of the Philippines)

4.   The Adviser: EFREN LL. CRUZ (Pwede Na! Author & Investments Guru)

5.   The Coach: RANDELL TIONGSON

6.   The Director: HENRY ONG (Head of the Registered Financial Planner & others)

7.   The Moderator: JAMES RYAN JONAS (Pinoy Money Talk)

8.   The Blogger: FITZ VILLAFUERTE (Ready to be Rich Blog)

9.   The Banker: AURELIO R. MONTINOLA (BPI)

10. The Enabler: JESUS P. TAMBUNTING (Planters Development Bank)

11. The Stock Broker: CONRADO F. BATE (Citiseconline)

12. The Insurer: RIZALINA G. MANTARING (Sun Life Financial)

Grab a copy of the July-August issue of Moneysense to read about why they think the 12 deserves to be part of the list.

… conclusion

What should we do? Well, we should continue to build more professional practitioners, teach them well and make them adhere to values like competence, integrity and commitment. At the same time, those who are in a position to create awareness should go double time. Write more books, have more seminars, build more websites, blog more frequently, publish more articles… the list goes on. Take awareness to more main stream avenues like the mass media but it can go beyond that. I am ecstatic whenever our church (Victory Green Hills) will tackle topics that will revolve around money and personal finance. The church needs to look after its flock, money issues are foremost in their concerns. Church related celebrities like Bo Sanchez and Chinkee Tan have been talking about money and personal finance from a biblical perspective and are convincing people that God truly wants them to live victorious lives. I was once interviewed by a Bishop for his TV talk show and the topic is personal finance. I asked the Bishop why he felt that there is a need; he told me that the church is really concerned about the welfare of the people, spiritually and physically (or financially). The Bible is full of verses that relates directly to money issues and when you read it, you can really feel that God wants us to be living great lives in all aspects. Bo, Chinkee and many more are making people realize that… great! I am encouraged to see more authors write about the topic and its great that their books have been selling well. My good friends Efren Cruz (Pwede Na! series), Chinkee Tan (Till Debt Do Us Part, For Richer & For Poorer) are great & practical books to help people. I also endorsed a new book by Ardy Roberto on biblical finance. The country’s leading motivational and inspirational guru, Francis Kong, has been encouraging people to take control of their financial lives through many of his seminars and talks. These are all great… and we need more, more, more! Sometimes I do wonder if I’m making any impact at all, even a miniscule one – I guess only time will tell. However, I will continue to do what I am doing for the next 20+ years and longer, I hope. I want to encourage people in the profession not to give up too easily when their job becomes too challenging. I would like to encourage my peers in the training profession to continue to teach. I would hope that people like Efren, Chinkee, Ardy & Francis will continue to write books and speak to as many Filipinos as they can. I pray that there will be many of us who will help our brothers’ plan for their future.

22+ years in the industry. The past was good and the future will be bright if we do the right things in the present. Looking forward to my next 20+ years! Let’s go and help people plan for the future!

Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. – Romans 12:13, NIV

Convincing people that they need insurance, long term savings and a healthy cash flow is not that easy. You will hear all sorts of excuses and you will see people uninterested. However, when you see a sale on flat tv’s, cameras, mobile phones, branded clothes, etc., you will see long queues. I visited a gadgets sale a few months ago and saw an extremely long line. Going through a madness sale in a mall is really, well, madness. It makes me wonder how many of them are taking financial planning seriously – not many I assume. The biggest hurdle of a ‘would be’ financial planner is not so much on the acquisition of technical skills. People will not be so interested in the time value of money or financial needs analysis until it’s too late. Creating awareness and motivating people to do something are the biggest difficulties.

The fact that many in this profession are more interested in making a sale than actually helping people only adds to the difficulties. Making a sale is not an issue, one need to earn from his profession and sale of financial instruments is a very honorable profession. However, when a practitioner starts to misrepresent and mislead clients, that’s a big problem. Many practitioners would make unfounded claims for their products, like a low risk and high yield product — yeah right! Unscrupulous practitioners should be behind bars or at least barred from practicing. These practices make it very difficult for legitimate practitioners from gaining the trust of prospective clients.

Trust — it is the key to helping plan their financial future. A financial planner needs to build his competency and exhibit utmost professionalism at all times so that he will be listened to. If one wants to experience success in the financial practitioner profession, he needs to really build himself well.

Unscrupulous practitioners notwithstanding, Filipinos really need to hear from professional practitioners and must have open minds and open hearts. Our average financial condition is really disturbing and causing us a lot of difficulties in life. Further, the economic impact of a nation of uninsured poor savers is really precarious.

… to be continued