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Why Santé Barley and Santé Daily-C are your partners in this cold, rainy season
To gear up yourself during the ‘Brrr’ months, here’s how you can prepare with Santé.
It feels nothing but joy to realize that the holiday season is just around the corner because, finally, we can start using our sweaters and jackets and get cozy with our holiday hot drinks. The Ber Months mark the start of the joyful season and the start of colder nights. But are you prepared to face these times?
It is only fitting to prepare yourself for the holiday season because it is best to celebrate it with your loved ones in your best shape. And for Santé, a premier natural health and wellness product, and services provider, celebrating the holiday season healthy is one of the greatest joys they can provide for people. With the COVID-19 pandemic and other health risks like the common cold, it is easy to get more exposed during the colder season.
According to an article, cold, rainy weather is not the reason people get sick; the viruses get stronger during the cooler temperature. These viruses spread faster, which increases the chance of exposure. To combat this, your immune system needs to be stronger than ever.
To gear up yourself during the ‘Brrr’ months, here’s how you can prepare with Santé.
Take your vitamins
One of the easiest ways for viruses and illnesses to enter your body is when you have a weak immune system. During the cold season, it is vital to strengthen your immune system to fully combat all viruses and bacteria that can cause cough, flu, cold, and more. While you can get a good number of vitamins and nutrition from the food you eat, it is also essential to take vitamins to support your body.
Vitamin is one of the important vitamins you should get for yourself because it is essential for your growth and boosts your immunity. If you want to get your daily dose of Vitamin C, it is time to include Santé Daily-C in your daily routine.
Santé Daily-C is the perfect vitamin for you and your loved ones in the ‘Brr’ months. It’s a non-acidic vitamin C that contains 568mg of Sodium Ascorbate. Since it’s a Sodium Ascorbate, it’s gentler on the stomach and safer for daily use. With Santé Daily-C, you can get the most out of this vitamin source without experiencing acidic pain. Santé Daily-C is available in three variants: Daily-C 500mg, Daily-C 750mg, and Daily-C Plus.
Switch to healthier eating habits
Of course, vitamins will not work on their own. You will need a good eating habit that will support the other vitamins and nutrients your body needs. If you are looking for a sign to go green and eat more vegetables and fruits more often, this is it.
Instead of eating junk food whenever you are stressed, try eating healthier snacks like salads. Moreover, if you love soft drinks, artificial juice, and drinks with too much sugar, it is also time to drop them and switch to a healthier alternative. Santé Barley is the best healthy drink that you can try.
Santé Barley is a pure barley grass powdered drink rightly mixed with stevia, one of nature’s most potent sweeteners. Santé Barley used barley grass harvested in New Zealand and is certified by BioGro as organic. This is best to take before meals and is also easy to prepare. You can adjust the taste of Santé Barley according to your liking by adjusting the water. Available in 3g sachets or in 200g canisters, Santé Barley is sure to complete your balanced diet.
Restock your medical supply
Because you will be more susceptible to viruses and illnesses during the cold season, restocking every medical supply needed in an emergency is crucial. One of the essential things to replenish is your go-to medicine for cough, colds, and flu. It is also vital to restock your sanitation kits like alcohol, disinfectant sprays, anti-bacterial soaps and wet wipes, and more that you can use to eliminate germs and viruses on any surface.
You can also restock some supplements to keep your body healthy in your medical supply. Aside from getting more stocks of Santé Daily-C, you should also include Santé Barley™ capsules in your medical kit.
Santé Barley™ capsules are a 500-mg pure barley grass powder packed in vegetable capsules, and this is best to take before meals. Once you add this capsule to your routine, it will help increase your stamina and energy, strengthen your immune system, and give you more benefits that will keep you healthy during the cold season.
Take a pause and rest
Usually, during Ber Months, people are busier than usual. There are many factors why and sometimes, it is so easy to get caught up with the hustle culture that we tend to forget to take a pause and rest for ourselves.
Remember, the holiday season is about spending time with your loved ones. And you probably cannot do it if your body is too tired from all the external stress you encounter. Now that the weather is colder, it is time to take all the warm hugs from your loved ones and treasure every moment.
While resting, it is also vital to include the vitamins and supplements from Santé to regain all the energy and nutrients you lost. Santé believes that to prepare for the cold season, you should also take care of your body. Using products with natural ingredients will surely make your Ber Months merrier.
“At Santé, we believe that spending the holiday season healthy is the greatest gift you can give to your loved ones. As a prime mover in the health and wellness industry, we always believe that these products should be more accessible to everyone so that every family and friend can always enjoy a healthy body,” said Joey Marcelo, chief executive officer of Santé.
Santé Daily-C and Santé Barley are natural health and wellness products offered by Santé. Dedicated to developing a comprehensive selection of everyday wellness products, Santé designed all its goods to improve people’s quality of life, to live more, and do more.
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Sun Life appoints Bianca Ilibasic as Managing Director, Sun Life Global Solutions
She will lead SLGS across India and the Philippines, providing strategic direction to multi-functional teams spanning Technology, Operations, Analytics, Actuarial, HR, Finance, and Risk & Compliance.
Sun Life has appointed Bianca Ilibasic as the Managing Director for its global capability centre, Sun Life Global Solutions (SLGS). She previously served as Vice President & Chief Operations Officer, Sun Life Asia.
In her new role, Bianca will lead SLGS across India and the Philippines, providing strategic direction to multi-functional teams spanning Technology, Operations, Analytics, Actuarial, HR, Finance, and Risk & Compliance. Her mandate is to further scale SLGS as a high-impact, enterprise capability supporting Sun Life across 28 markets.
During her time in Asia, Bianca advanced straight-through processing, accelerated digital adoption, and shaped a forward-looking AI roadmap to drive business growth — strengthening shared platforms and enabling scalable outcomes.
Commenting on the appointment, Laura Money, EVP and Chief Information and Technology Innovation Officer, Sun Life, said, “Over the past four years, Bianca has been a driving force behind operational excellence and digital transformation, leading with clarity, courage, and a deep commitment to our Purpose. Advancing our AI roadmap and scaling impact across common platforms, Bianca has been consistently delivering results while building strong, empowered teams. She is a visionary, insights driven leader who brings energy, heart, and ambition to everything she does, and I could not be more thrilled to see her step into this role.”
Reflecting on the opportunity, Bianca added: “I am excited to begin this new chapter. Sun Life Global Solutions is more than a capability centre — excellence, innovation, and dedication are consistently demonstrated via brilliant, passionate teams across India and the Philippines who support our Purpose and our Clients every single day. What excites me most is the opportunity to build on our foundation and deepen partnerships, accelerate transformation, and relentlessly focus on outcomes that truly matter to our Clients.”
Bianca’s appointment marks a defining moment for SLGS, strengthening its role as both a strategic engine for enterprise value and a platform where empowered teams can shape what’s next for Sun Life. We look forward to everything Bianca and the SLGS team will achieve together.
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Manulife continues legacy of service in PH with Impact Week 2026
All five Manulife organizations in the Philippines—Manulife Philippines, Manulife China Bank Life Assurance Corporation (MCBL), Manulife Investment Management and Trust Corporation (MIMTC), Manulife Business Processing Services (MBPS), and Manulife IT Delivery Center (MITDC)—held activities that advanced environmental, educational, and social causes.
Manulife hosted its inaugural Impact Week, a global volunteer initiative designed to strengthen well-being, build social connection and unite teams through purpose-driven community action.
All five Manulife organizations in the Philippines—Manulife Philippines, Manulife China Bank Life Assurance Corporation (MCBL), Manulife Investment Management and Trust Corporation (MIMTC), Manulife Business Processing Services (MBPS), and Manulife IT Delivery Center (MITDC)—held activities that advanced environmental, educational, and social causes.
“Manulife’s Longevity ambition is about helping people live longer, healthier, and more financially secure lives—and we believe that starts with strong, resilient communities,” said Rahul Hora, President and Chief Executive Officer, Manulife Philippines. “Impact Week brings this to life by mobilizing colleagues across our Philippine entities to volunteer at scale, working side by side with our community partners and reinforcing the shared purpose that strengthens long-term well-being. Through these collective actions, we are creating immediate impact and helping build a more sustainable and inclusive future for the communities we serve.”
Results and Highlights from Impact Week 2026
During Impact Week, more than 1,200 colleagues participated in volunteering activities, logging more than 4,700 volunteering hours.
Beyond the numbers, Impact Week strengthened connection across teams, bringing colleagues together around shared purpose and reinforcing a culture of inclusion.
- Ongoing tripartite impact: As part of a tripartite collaboration with the Corazon Sanchez Atayde Memorial Foundation (CSAMF) and Haribon Foundation—combining Manulife’s community investment commitments, CSAMF’s financial literacy program, and Haribon’s biodiversity and environmental work—Manulife Philippines, Manulife China Bank Life (MCBL), and Manulife Investment Management and Trust Corporation (MIMTC) led the on-ground activities in Infanta, Quezon Province.
- Supporting financial resilience through Peso Smart: Volunteers supported Peso Smart Pinoy (PSP) through challenge-based activities in Brgy. Alitas, Infanta, culminating in a graduation ceremony recognizing PSP participants and their progress toward greater financial confidence. Peso Smart is a financial literacy program that has reached more than 4,000 learners across 18 schools nationwide since 2017,
- Contributing to a healthier planet: Volunteers, together with Haribon Foundation and the Alitas Farmers Folks Association (AFFA), planted 2,500 mangrove seedlings, advancing the Ridge-to-Reef Reforestation Initiative and adding to Manulife and Haribon’s total of more than 31,000 trees planted since 2023.
- Prioritizing health and well-being: Volunteers partnered with Rise Against Hunger Philippines and Waves for Water Philippines to support food security and water, sanitation, and hygiene initiatives. Together, they packed 17,700+ rice meals, rescued 1,200+ kg of surplus food, distributed 500 hot meals, produced 3,300 mushroom bags for livelihoods, assembled 150 water filtration kits, and developed 100+ concepts for food bank and mobile kitchen initiatives.
- Supporting community education: MITDC delivered its Code4Future program to 28 young learners from St. Martin de Porres Kid’s Home—using coding and creativity to build problem-solving skills and digital confidence.
Extending Impact Together
In addition to the company organized activities, individual colleague teams across the Manulife organizations were supported in leading their own volunteer initiatives with local non-profit partners. For each eligible team-led initiative, Manulife provided a $1,000 donation to the partner organization, extending the reach of Impact Week.
“The most meaningful work is often personal. At Manulife, volunteerism grows when people are trusted to lead on the causes they care about,” said Ardhi Siregar, Chief People Officer, Manulife Philippines. “That’s why we empowered our teams to identify a community impact need, choose a local non-profit partner to collaborate with, and lead the effort themselves—with team grants helping extend that impact through added support where it matters most. That sense of ownership and purpose is what fuels deeper engagement and inspires our colleagues to drive impact that endures.”
With more than 13,000 volunteering hours logged across all Philippine entities in 2025, Impact Week 2026 reflects Manulife’s growing culture of service in the communities where it operates and stands to make a difference.
Volunteering: A Longevity Driver Impact Week aligns closely with the work of the Manulife Longevity Institute, a global research, thought leadership, innovation, advocacy, and community investment platform that will help people thrive at every age. The Institute’s work will support Manulife’s Impact Agenda strategy as our always-on commitment to drive better outcomes for our customers, our communities, and the world we share. We believe collective action can accelerate change and, by collaborating with like-minded partners, we can make a meaningful impact.
Product Showcase
Manulife launches GoalReady health solutions
GoalReady for Health combines investment-linked savings with critical illness and life protection—helping customers build their funds while protecting their goals if a serious illness strikes.
Manulife Philippines and Manulife China Bank Life (MCBL) today announced the launch of Manulife GoalReady for Health, an investment-linked savings plan with comprehensive critical illness and life insurance coverage.
GoalReady for Health combines investment-linked savings with critical illness and life protection—helping customers build their funds while protecting their goals if a serious illness strikes. Designed for Filipinos who want to stay on track with their long-term goals, it helps manage the potential financial disruption caused by health setbacks.
As more Filipinos plan for longer lives, staying on track with their life goals increasingly means being prepared for rising healthcare costs, prolonged illness, and the financial strain health setbacks can place on families. The plan addresses the growing gap in financial preparedness for health emergencies among Filipinos. The recent Manulife Asia Care Study revealed that about four in five Filipinos believe their financial wellbeing has great impact on their health span (both physical and mental) and lifespan.
The financial stakes are steep: A study on the economic impact of cancer in the Philippines found that Filipino patients spend an average of ₱181,789 out-of-pocket within the first year of diagnosis, highlighting the significant financial burden of treatment. Yet Filipinos remain financially underprepared for these possibilities. According to latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, Filipinos’ household out-of-pocket for medical expenses stood at 42.7%, while a recent Manulife study found that 33% of Filipinos feel they have insufficient insurance coverage.
GoalReady for Health enables customers to build a dedicated pool of savings for future health needs through professionally managed, investment-linked fund options designed to support long-term goals. At the same time, it provides built-in critical illness protection, helping customers stay on track with their plans even when a serious health event occurs.
“Many Filipinos work hard to build toward their goals, but a serious illness can quickly turn years of progress into an unexpected financial burden. Manulife GoalReady for Health brings together critical illness protection and investment-linked savings for future health needs, helping customers stay financially prepared while protecting what they’ve worked hard to build,” said Rahul Hora, President and Chief Executive Officer, Manulife Philippines.
“With Manulife GoalReady for Health, we want Filipinos to move forward with confidence, knowing that a health shock need not become a financial setback—so they can focus on recovery while keeping their savings and life goals on track, and live better for longer,” Hora added.
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