From a beauty queen with a purpose to sisters who are out to disrupt the world for good, we speak to these inspiring women who are set to make a mark.

PHOTOGRAPHY Shaira Luna
CREATIVE DIRECTION Tin Dabbay
BEAUTY DIRECTION Maura Rodriguez
STYLING Frances Laman
How does a person transform a career into a calling? A profession takes up a huge part of a life, but it can be a difficult question to answer. Yet, purpose is always within reach. In the Philippines, where activism meets filmmaking and pageantry blends with advocacy, the search for impact is taking center stage.&nbsp;L&rsquo;Officiel Philippines speaks to six young Filipinas who are trying to make it work while making a difference.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">Tasha and Bella Tanjutco</h3>

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&ldquo;We always talked about how we wanted to change everything,&rdquo; shares Tasha Tanjutco. &ldquo;And obviously, all adults were like, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re crazy; you can&rsquo;t change everything.&rsquo;&rdquo; In 2015, at ages 15 and 13, Tasha and Bella founded Kids for Kids, a youth organization that began as backyard fundraisers and grew into a nationwide movement.
The sisters grew up in a world informed by good design. Their mother was an art educator who practiced art therapy, and their grandfather was Bobby Ma&ntilde;osa, National Artist for Architecture. At a very young age, they realized that design wasn&rsquo;t just about how things looked: it was about how they worked. They saw that everything, from the structures we live in to the way a paintbrush moves, could be engineered to solve a problem or start a movement.
&ldquo;Design was always the solution and forefront of practice for advocacy work,&rdquo; Bella shares. &ldquo;There was never really a certain point where it turned into design activism, because the way we approach advocacy is really practicing good design and practicing Filipino design.&rdquo;
They began Kids for Kids to share the world that they knew as children &mdash; colorful, creative, and design-led. &ldquo;We thought that the rest of the world deserved avenues to be able to see life in a creative way,&rdquo; Tasha explains. To the sisters, the magic they felt as children wasn&rsquo;t something to be hoarded, but a right that every Filipino child deserved.
Now 26 and 24, Tasha and Bella have matured alongside their mission. They realized that while fundraisers could provide immediate help, design could provide long-term solutions.
This led to the founding of TAYO, their archipelagic design and experience studio.
&ldquo;Our goal with archipelagic design is to present this idea of seeing creative industries as islands&mdash;each with its own uniqueness but all connected by the water&mdash;blending art, craft, culture, and design industries,&rdquo; shares Tasha. &ldquo;Just like the way our ancestors designed for both survival and sustainability, these industries should always be grounded in the nature they come from.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s a philosophy that moves away from one-size-fits-all solutions and instead designs for the diverse, fluid needs of the environment and culture of local communities. For the sisters, this means practicing design that is rooted in the tayo (us) rather than the ako (me).
Through TAYO, they have professionalized this approach into a consultancy and agency. From crafting brand identities to experiences, they act as strategic partners for businesses, helping them navigate cultural sensitivities and redesign their systems to be more Filipino-led.
When PLDT-Smart requested corporate gifts, the sisters saw an opportunity to activate an entire ecosystem. With the barong and terno industry at a standstill during the pandemic, TAYO created a systemic lifeline for Lumban, Laguna.&nbsp;By employing 250 community members to upcycle flour sacks into 16,000 bags, they generated 2.1 million pesos in local income. The impact continued, funding Child Protection Units in 16 barangays with Save the Children and UNICEF.&nbsp;Then, the whole project&rsquo;s carbon footprint was offset through mangrove planting in Siargao. It&rsquo;s what a design solution looks like when it&rsquo;s built for, and with, the archipelago.
<h3 data-start="1027" data-end="1260" style="text-align: center;">Joanne Cesario</h3>
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A gift she received in elementary school sparked Joanne Cesario&rsquo;s love for image-making: a 35mm point-and-shoot camera from a visiting aunt. &ldquo;I would take photos of classmates and scenery,&rdquo; the filmmaker recalls. She would compile the prints into photo albums &mdash; her early experiments in framing and storytelling.
Years later, her images would live on both screens and pages.&nbsp;A graduate of UP Diliman, Joanne discovered filmmaking in her sophomore year of college. It was also in Katipunan where her creative path intersected with activism, as she became involved in the student movement lobbying for free education.
Joanne&rsquo;s films often revolve around extraordinary people who are overlooked or ignored &mdash; usually Filipino workers or women. &ldquo;Lumalaki kasi ako na super shy,&rdquo; the 30-year-old shares. &ldquo;So may special place talaga sa akin &lsquo;yong mga tao na may difficulty to express. Especially kung &lsquo;yong difficulty na &rsquo;yon nanggagaling pa sa dahilan na marginalized sila.&rdquo;
Her film Here, Here is about a young man who returns to his home province after his father&rsquo;s mining accident. Without any backing, the movie was selected to compete at the 2020 Locarno Film Festival, one of the world&rsquo;s most prestigious. &ldquo;Zero connections,&rdquo; she says proudly. &ldquo;Lahat talaga, hard work lang.&rdquo; Out of 2,200 global submissions, her film was one of only 43 selected &mdash; and the sole representative from the Philippines.
On the day of submission, armed only with a pocket Wi-Fi device, a spotty signal, and a 3000-peso loan, Joanne sent it in. Weeks later, after she had nearly forgotten about it, an email arrived from the organization: she&rsquo;d made it.
Still, for Joanne, international accolades are secondary to the work on the ground. She identifies as an activist and labor organizer, and as she continues to make films, she remains committed to stories that listen closely &mdash; to silence, to struggle, to the margins.
In 2024, she released Invisible Labor, which follows a janitor and activist who archived footage from Martial Law. When Joanne first screened the film, she started with the very communities she knew it would resonate with. &ldquo;Kita mo talaga yung difference kasi pag nagsi-screen kami sa communities, sa workers, sa schools, malaki talaga &lsquo;yong appreciation,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;Ang common feedback ay nakikita nila &lsquo;yong sarili nila doon characters.&rdquo;
For Joanne, this recognition of oneself in art is the point. She rejects the industry&rsquo;s tendency to separate the creative from the political, seeing the two as naturally linked. &ldquo;Activism is a desire for better things,&rdquo; she says. To her, a film isn&rsquo;t less artistic because it takes a side &mdash; it is more vital because it does.
By capturing the lives of those who build the world but are rarely seen by it, Joanne proves that cinema can be both a high art and a grassroots tool.
<h3 data-start="2682" data-end="2832" style="text-align: center;">Ana Palomo-Mabanta</h3>

&ldquo;For a long time, lingerie has been designed around how women look, usually through someone else&rsquo;s eyes, with the goal of being sexy,&rdquo; shares Ana Palomo-Mabanta, founder of NORA. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s totally fine, but I was more interested in how it feels from the inside.&rdquo;
The brand was born from a frustration with the undergarment industry&mdash; the constant choice between something flattering or something comfortable. &ldquo;You start asking yourself, why is good underwear still so hard to find?&rdquo; Ana explains. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s such a daily essential but so much of what&rsquo;s out there still doesn&rsquo;t hit that balance of comfort, fit, and looking cute.&rdquo; So, she put her decade-long background to use and built the solution.
With international degrees in both fashion branding and global supply chain management, and years spent at the local athleisure brand Recess, the 34-year-old has a 360-degree understanding of design, strategy, marketing, and merchandising. Simply put: Ana knows how to make a wearable product, and she knows how to make it work.
&ldquo;One thing I&rsquo;m genuinely proud of is how our core underwear styles fit,&rdquo; she shares. &ldquo;The waistbands are designed not to dig in or pinch, so you&rsquo;re not standing in front of the mirror thinking, &lsquo;Why is this digging in like that?&rsquo; and suddenly feeling hyper-aware of your body, or spending the whole day uncomfortable and self-conscious.&rdquo;
While the industry standard often leans toward sculpting and contouring, Ana is switching the narrative to simply feeling good in your own skin. It&rsquo;s a message that clearly works: though NORA only launched in December 2025, it has already garnered a cult following.
&ldquo;And for me, that&rsquo;s the best feedback,&rdquo; she shares. &ldquo;It tells me we&rsquo;re not just creating something that looks good. We&rsquo;re creating something women genuinely want to make part of their everyday.&rdquo;
With the foundation established, the goal is now to scale that philosophy. Ana isn&rsquo;t looking to stop at the first layer: she sees the gap in the market extending much further.
&ldquo;I want it to grow beyond underwear and loungewear into a full essentials wardrobe,&rdquo; she explains. &ldquo;Always staying rooted in what we started with: solving real pain points and designing around how women actually live.&rdquo;
<h3 data-start="2020" data-end="2238" style="text-align: center;">Hannah Arnold</h3>

The 16-hour bus ride to Masbate defined Hannah Arnold&rsquo;s childhood summers. Born in Australia, she would return to the Philippines with her mother and sister, navigating the long haul from Manila to Bicol. It was on these trips that she fell in love with the community. Later, she would decide to compete in Binibining Pilipinas under the banner of the land she first saw through a bus window.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s beautiful because we wear the sash of our province,&rdquo; the 30-year-old says of the pageant experience. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not only representing yourself, but your community. You&rsquo;re given a platform to talk about your advocacies.&rdquo;
Winning the title of Binibining Pilipinas International in 2021 was only one chapter of a varied professional life. Before pageantry, Hannah was a forensic scientist and an online English teacher. Afterward, she shifted gears toward heavy-duty advocacy. The stage wasn&rsquo;t so much the destination as it was a launchpad.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m still doing everything that my parents taught me years ago &mdash; to give back to the community,&rdquo; she shares. &ldquo;But now, I&rsquo;m just known more as Hannah Arnold, Binibining Pilipinas.&rdquo;
A standout answer during her pageant&rsquo;s Q&amp;A portion led to her appointment as an ambassador for the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
&ldquo;I spoke about the need to invest in science and technology, and who knew both of my passions would collide that night?&rdquo; she recalls. &ldquo;The DOST was listening; my supporters came together, and I actually became an ambassador for the Department of Science and Technology.&rdquo;
Since then, she has expanded her reach, working with ChildHope Philippines and LoveYourself Philippines &mdash; a cause championed by pageant icons like Pia Wurtzbach and Catriona Gray.
Her commitment to education eventually led to the creation of her own organization, Books of Tomorrow.&nbsp;&ldquo;When I was an online English teacher, I would reward my students after class by reading them a book,&rdquo; she shares with a smile. &ldquo;I could see their faces light up.&rdquo;&nbsp;Inspired by this experience, the organization partners with ChildHope to provide school supplies, specifically books, to low-income families in the Philippines.
It&rsquo;s a role that draws on all her previous lives &mdash; the methodology of science, the patience of a teacher, and the visibility of her title. For Hannah, the crown was never the final act, but it was the entry point into a much longer career of service.
&ldquo;A lot of people ask if I&rsquo;m going to join pageantry again, but Miss International was already my dream,&rdquo; Hannah says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy with how everything happened because now I have this platform. Like they say: with or without a crown, you&rsquo;re going to do your thing.&rdquo;
<h3 data-start="2416" data-end="2679" style="text-align: center;">Cleo Loque</h3>

As a child, Cleo Loque spent her school breaks running a mini sari-sari store in Taytay, Rizal. &ldquo;Mahilig talaga ako magbenta,&rdquo; the 22-year-old shares. By 15, that drive evolved from a neighborhood stall into her own brand.
With a 20,000-peso loan from her parents, Cleo founded Hiraya. It began as a t-shirt business&mdash;150 shirts printed with empowering messages. &ldquo;Words of affirmation din kasi ang love language ko,&rdquo; she shares. She used any revenue to pivot, experimenting with different products like tote bags, masks, perfumes, and journals.
Eventually, the label became an innerwear solutions brand focused on nipple pasties. One night in late 2022, she went live on TikTok for three hours, offering a 20% discount for the product.
&ldquo;I told them I&rsquo;d ship everything the next day,&rdquo; she laughingly recalls. &ldquo;I was a one-woman team.&rdquo;&nbsp;By the time she ended the stream, she had over 3,000 orders. The business snowballed. Seeing the boom, she cut all other product lines to focus solely on innerwear, innovating an entire brand around the nipple pasty.
Beyond the numbers, Cleo&rsquo;s focus is on making innerwear solutions accessible. She saw a gap where certain products were either too expensive or only available in limited shades and sizes.&nbsp;&ldquo;My mom is plus-size, and her concern when we shop is always: &lsquo;Wala namang para sa akin dito,&rsquo;&rdquo; she shares. Cleo made sure Hiraya was different. The brand was the first in the Philippines to offer nipple pasties and silicone bras in expanded sizes, reaching Cup D to Cup E. For her, the business is about removing the barriers that keep women from wearing what they want.
It turned out to be a smart decision. Now, her one-woman team has grown to 50 people. Having only graduated from college last year, many of those in her employ are older than she is. On Instagram, the brand has almost 50,000 followers, and on TikTok, an impressive 350,000.
Hiraya&rsquo;s success is chiefly owed to Cleo&rsquo;s mastery of social media. &ldquo;Whether you&rsquo;re a big company corporation or a start-up, social media equalizes everything for anyone,&rdquo; she shares. &ldquo;I feel like it opens up so many opportunities for the younger generation.&rdquo; Tech-savvy, trend-aware, and business-minded, she understands the minds of the modern-day consumer.
Their social media is extremely active, with a mix of content from celebrity ambassadors, educational fit guides, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the brand&rsquo;s growth. It&rsquo;s a strategy that treats the customer like a community rather than just a transaction. And evidently, she draws people in.&nbsp;But she isn&rsquo;t just playing for the algorithm. For Cleo, the goal is to ensure Hiraya remains a fixture in the modern Filipina&rsquo;s wardrobe.
MAKEUP&nbsp;Don De Jesus (Tasha, Hannah, and Joanne) and Raffy Mendiola (Belle, Cleo, and Ana)
HAIR Miggy Carbonilla (Tasha, Hannah, and Joanne) and Jaaron Go (Belle, Cleo, and Ana)
MAKEUP ASSISTANTS Dominic Ocampo and Danie Medina
SHOOT ASSISTANT&nbsp;Tere Gabat

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