While the idea of aging casts a pall on the imaginations of most people, former Binibining Pilipinas-Universe Rose Marie "Chiqui" Brosas-Hahn thinks it's the perfect time to improve and find one's purpose — as what God wants us to be. 

"It's not the years in your life, but the life in your years that matters," she says.

The then 17-year-old dusky beauty was a fresh graduate from the Assumption Convent when she joined the Binibining Pilipinas quest over 30 years ago. A clear favorite from the start, the effervescent teen immediately romped off with the "Miss Photogenic" and "Best in Swimsuit" awards (the first in the pageant's history), en route to the Bb. Pilipinas-Universe 1975 title. She almost brought home the bacon in El Salvador, topping the evening gown competition with a butterfly gown designed by Pitoy Moreno and ending up as fourth runnerup to Anne Marie Pohtamo of Finland. 

"I am a simple person, easily pleased with modest things in life. Though the beauty contest helped me a lot in molding the kind of person I am right now, I found it difficult to be public property," she revealed. Which is why after her reign, she went to France and completed her degree in International Business Administration at the American College in Paris. She returned to the country in 1980 and married Filipino-German business magnate Ralph Hahn in 1983.

After giving birth to her first child in 1983 without medical intervention, she became interested in the Lamaze method, employing it seven years later, with the birth of her second child. Eventually her interest in natural childbirth led her to conduct childbirth preparation classes in her house, flying off to the United States in 1990 to complete her formal training at the American Academy of Husband-Coached Childbirth, where she specialized in the Bradley method. She is the only accredited Bradley method teacher in the Philippines to date.