Charito (or Chat) was born in Manila and went to Cebu to study where she earned an accounting degree.  After passing the board exams, she earned her Certified Public Accountant title and worked as an auditor with the Philippine Commission on Audit.

Chat and her family migrated to Canada in 2001 but had a 9-month experience of living in the country from 1996-1997 when she was sent on a fellowship grant to the Office of the Auditor-General of Canada.  Because her accountant designation was not recognized in Canada, she went back to school and got her Chartered Professional Accountant designation in 2007, which allowed her to work as an auditor with a Crown Corporation for 10 years and retired in 2017.

Chat and her husband have been active members of Couples for Christ since 1995 and currently, are active members of the Missionary Families of Christ, where most members are Filipinos.   She does numerous volunteer work such as in the Temporal Council of the Assumption Church, and the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP) of Revenue Canada where she prepares income tax returns for low income Canadians and seniors.  Her current passion is to provide financial education/literacy to individuals/families and help them learn how to make money work better for them.

She speaks Waray as her parents were from Leyte; Cebuano, her husband’s first language; and Ilonggo, her in-laws’ language.