Loving Out Loud

Amanda and David Jacob speak openly about their family values, what it’s like to live with four rambunctious children and how their love, just like their music, is always turned up full blast

- Stephanie Zubiri

Our family life couldn’t be more divergent from what it was,” declares Amanda Griffin Jacob, former model, VJ and wellness, health and justice advocate. “In the past, we were all on a plane almost every month. Travel was one of the central tenets of our family.” Amanda, her husband David and their four children have been living abroad for more than 12 years now—first in Hong Kong and for the past six years, Singapore. The couple, however, possess deep Filipino roots having both grown up in the Philippines.

Pre-pandemic, Amanda “would fly to Manila every three weeks for work commitments and I would always bring the younger kids along”. David, CEO of Marsh Asia, an insurance brokering and risk management firm, often travelled for work as well. “This is the first time in our 13-year relationship that David and I have been together for a whole year straight,” shares Amanda. “That, by itself, was an adjustment, but a good one for us. It has been such a blessing to have him around all the time, especially as he can now share the emotional, mental and physical load with me when it comes to the children.”

Amanda and David have four beautiful children. Three are boys: Kieran, 11, who is “extremely intelligent, strong willed and excels in most things he puts his mind to”; Kalon, 8, “the kindest, gentlest, most empathetic soul you will meet”; and Kyle, 2, “our little tornado”. Their only daughter, Lila, is five and “she really is a bit of a paradox”, says her mother. “She’s sweet and salty, introverted but fierce. She is very artistic and loves to create beauty all around her.”