Get to Know Usanimals Better and Discover How Great it is for Your Child’s Health!

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Are you confident that your child is getting all the nutrients he or she needs for daily nutrition and overall health? How do you encourage your child to like or even enjoy taking vitamins?

With the help of Usanimals by USANA, parents can support their children’s growth in a fun, convenient and healthful way. Usanimals is a daily multivitamin for children ages 2 to 12 with a balanced formula that contains 23 essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants to support healthy growth and development for healthy immune functions and energy levels, and bone support.

“Good growth encompasses all aspects in the development of children – from physical, physiological, intellectual, emotional and psychological. We are proud to say that Usanimals by USANA can support the nutritional demands of growing children by providing the relevant and the most comprehensive nutrients that result in improved overall health development,” said Gen Blasurca, Corporate Pharmacist at USANA.

Gen Blasurca (right at top cover photo), Corporate Pharmacist at USANA Health Sciences (USANA), leads a discussion about Usanimals, an FDA-approved multivitamin for children and teens, at a recent press conference on March 31, 2017 at the Happy Garden Café in Makati.

Usanimals was relaunched locally in response to parents’ clamor for complete, high-quality and effective kids’ multivitamins. According to Blasurca, each tablet is complete with 23 essential multivitamins, minerals and antioxidants to promote children’s healthy growth and development, a healthy immune function, balanced energy levels, and bone support.

With Blasurca are two of USANA’s to-earning distributors nine-star Diamond Director Josephine dela Fuente (center) and Emerald Director Mara Pasco (left), both of whom are mothers. During the discussion, Dela Fuente and Pasco revealed that Usanimals has nearly eliminated their children’s allergies and sick days, boosted their energy, and enabled them to enjoy taking vitamins through the chewable and animal-stamped tablets.

Founded in 1992, USANA is a U.S.-based nutritional company that manufactures high-quality supplements, personal care and healthy food products in its FDA-Registered Drug Establishment in Salt Lake City. In the Philippines, the company recently celebrated its 8^th year, earning PhP4 billion in local sales last year.

Children’s nutritional needs
Children need a diet sufficient in macro and micronutrients. Macronutrients refer to carbohydrates, fats and protein needed by the body to provide the vital energy and body building elements for survival and development.

Meanwhile, micronutrients are essential vitamins and minerals children needed in small amounts to support their physical and mental development. A child’s diet must also be sufficient to provide for the accumulation of stores of nutrients in preparation for the accelerated growth spurts of the teen years.

The lack of micronutrients such as iodine, vitamin A or iron in their daily diet may result in brain underdevelopment and poor performance in school, as well as the inability to cope with stress.

Usanimals contains quality antioxidants, vitamins and minerals to help ensure that the essential nutrients are present in your child’s diet. It contains vital micronutrients such as Vitamins A, C, E, and zinc to boost immunity; B6, B12, folate, and choline for healthy brain function; calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D for strong bones and teeth; and iron, thiamin, and B12 for energy. It also contains calcium pantothenate, biotin, inositol, antioxidant phytonutrient complex (blackberry, raspberry, cranberry, blueberry fruit powder), selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum.

It is free of artificial flavors and sweeteners. Each chewable tablet is easy to eat, is stamped with animal shapes and has a natural wild berry flavor, making it a yummy and fun treat for kids!

Gen Blasurca, Corporate Pharmacist at USANA Health Sciences, recently presented Usanimals, an FDA-approved dietary supplement for children and teens, during a recent press conference at the Happy Garden Café in Makati. The multivitamin was relaunched in response to parents’ clamor for complete, high-quality and effective kids’ multivitamins. According to Blasurca, each Usanimals tablet is complete with 23 essential multivitamins, minerals and antioxidants that promote children’s healthy growth and development, a healthy immune function, balanced energy levels, bone support.

Each tablet costs only PhP18 versus purchasing discrete multivitamins and minerals which would cost more. Additional benefits of Usanimals include its chewable form compared with messy syrup counterparts, and its sugar-free formulation.

Founded in 1992, USANA Health Sciences is a U.S.-based nutritional company that manufactures high-quality supplements, personal care and healthy food products in its FDA-Registered Drug Establishment in Salt Lake City. In the Philippines, the company recently celebrated its 8^th year, earning PhP4 billion in local sales last year.

Feeding Program

USANA True Health Foundation (THF), USANA’s corporate social responsibility organization, recently partnered with Cornerstone Foundation – an education program under the group Couples for Christ, the Ateneo Center for Educational Development and the Department of Education – to conduct a six-month feeding program during their Saturday classes.

Throughout the program’s duration, the students were individually weighed and their heights measured before and after each feeding cycle, to track their physical development. It also allowed USANA’s program coordinators to monitor the other health needs of the children.

Aside from the weekly feeding sessions, USANA also generously gave each of the students a six-month supply of Usanimals. Results of the student’s physical progress, to be available later this year, will be used to improve the program further.

The USANA difference

“USANA ensures that it manufactures products that are well-researched and is backed by reliable and accurate science,” said Aurora Gaston, USANA Vice President for the Philippines and Indonesia. “We have in-house world-class scientists who test the potency and purity of USANA product to ensure complete and balanced formulas.”

“Our Scientific Advisory Council consists of independent associates whose insights into product applications and efficacy help us deliver high-quality products that promote human health.

“We work with distinguished scientific institutions who conduct research to ensure out company provides cutting-edge nutritionals.”

“At USANA, we believe that the quality of raw ingredients is of the utmost importance. USANA only uses ingredients of high quality to ensure maximum purity, potency, and bioavailability.”


For more information on Usanimals and other updates from USANA Philippines, visit and follow USANA’s social media portals on Facebook (facebook.com/OfficialUSANAPhilippines), Twitter (@usana_ph), and Instagram (usanapilipinas).

Three Ways Smart Uses Tech and Social Media for a Better Workplace

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Can you see yourself sharing a work idea with your CEO via social media?

For some people, such a scenario is difficult to imagine, as many companies still ban the use of social media (and sometimes even phones!) in the workplace. But for employees of Smart Communications, communicating with top bosses via social media is a normal thing. In fact, Smart encourages them to use digital tools that can improve productivity and make work more fun. Here are some of the ways they do this:

1.      Facebook for work

Smart is one of the telcos in Southeast Asia to use the platform called Workplace by Facebook. This is very much like your favorite social media site, except that it connects people within companies or a group of companies. Smart employees use this to share information and ideas (even with their CEO!), ask questions, receive instant feedback from colleagues, see real-time company news, communicate with co-workers via messaging, and even host video meetings. It allows them to collaborate with people from different departments and across different levels.

But it’s not all about work. Here they can also join different interest groups. There’s one for coffee lovers, another for members of the dragon boat team, and even one for sneakerheads!

Corporate learning is made more fun via gamified sessions.

2.      Training via mobile games

Remember dozing off at your last corporate seminar? At Smart, trainings are made more fun via the Gamified Mobile Learning (mLearning) Program. Notifications are regularly sent out to inform employees about available online lessons, many of which are translated into games. They can then decide which lessons they want to take AND when they want to take these.  Some enjoy taking these courses while stuck in traffic! Some of the lessons are about telecommunication basics, Microsoft Office, and project management.

3.      Digital activities during events

Toward the end of 2015, Smart organized an event for employees called Paskong Pagsaluhan. While there were a lot of on-ground activities, employees were also encouraged to post about these on their personal social media accounts, and to join a video-making caroling contest. To promote a spirit of gratitude, they were also urged to express appreciation for colleagues on Smart’s online commendation portal.

During the event, employees were also encouraged to use the Customer Advocacy Referral App (CARA for short). Through this app, they can help family and friends determine which Smart postpaid plan best suited them, facilitate postpaid applications, and report subscriber concerns faster.

Workplace has fostered a culture of open communication and collaboration among Smart employees, from all levels and departments.

These three programs won Gold Anvils at the 52nd Anvil Awards, which is considered the Oscars of Philippine public relations. Smart took home a total of 24 Anvils, earning them the Company of the Year trophy. 

Receiving the trophies were Smart representatives led by (starting sixth from left) Chief Financial Officer Chaye Cabal-Revilla, People Group FVP Gina Ordoñez, Chief People and Culture Officer Liza Sichon, and People Group AVP Che Agsaoay.

Smart has also won international awards citing it for being a top employer.

If you’re interested to join Smart, please visit smart.com.ph/careers

Up Playwrights' Theater Proudly Presents Angry Christ

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Perhaps one of the most enigmatic works of Philippine contemporary art is the mural entitled THE LAST JUDGEMENT in the Chapel of ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER in the Victorias Sugar Mill in Negros Occidental. The work of the Fil-American painter Alfonso Ossorio was created in 1950, a time of great social upheaval in Negros.

Ossorio was born to a family of great wealth. His father, Don Miguel Ossorio, was from a wealthy Manila merchant clan. Although he was born in Manila, he was sent to study in England at 8 years old and returned to the land of his birth only in 1949. After finishing what many acknowledge as his masterpiece, Ossorio flew back to the United States where he established his reputation as a painter and a patron of such artistic giants as Jackson Pollock and Jean Dubuffet. He never returned to the Philippines.

The mural both shocked and scandalized the people of Negros when it was first unveiled late in 1950. Today, the entire chapel is a tourist attraction as well as an important part of Negros history. It is a singular treasure of Philippine art.

ACT 1 covers the period when Ossorio first came home to begin work. His younger brother Frederic has commissioned a foreign architect to build a chapel. Ossorio brings with him the Countess, Ade de Bethune to design the church’s mosaics. While de Bethune easily integrates herself into the life of the sakadas, Alfonso must struggle with the many influences that shape the mural. The ghosts of his troubled childhood, his sexual preference, the poverty of the sakadas and the growing insurgency all prove deeply troubling. Equally troubling are the conventions of traditional liturgical art which he finds stale and limiting. A fictional character, Anselmo, a boy from a sakada family, is Alfonso’s assistant. Try as he may, Anselmo cannot accept the conventions of Ossorio’s art.

In ACT 2, Alfonso decides on the theme of the mural. Going against all convention and acknowledging all opposing influences, he begins to create a statement that reconciles both dark and light in his nature.