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The Ladies Philippine Golf Tour’s leading players face another stern international test as they join a formidable Taiwan LPGA Tour field in the Kenda Tire Cup, which fires off Wednesday, September 23, at the Taichung International Country Club in Taichung, Taiwan.

Seven of the top 10 players in the current TLPGA Order of Merit headline the NT$4-million championship, underscoring the depth of the field in the 54-hole event co-sanctioned by the LPGT and TLPGA.

The tournament marks another chapter in the two tours’ continuing partnership aimed at strengthening women’s golf in the region and providing players from both circuits with greater opportunities to compete at a higher level. It is also the first time the two organizations will co-sanction the Kenda Tire Cup after several seasons of collaboration through the Party Golfers Ladies Open.

Yvon Bisera spearheads the LPGT contingent, which includes a mix of seasoned campaigners and emerging talents determined to make an impact against some of the region’s established winners.

The Filipinas, however, will have to contend with an unfamiliar venue and one of the strongest fields they have encountered in the Taiwan series.

The Taichung International Country Club, located near the Dakang Walking Trails, features rolling and undulating fairways set amid secluded valleys, tree-lined corridors and views of the surrounding mountains. The East (out) and Central (in) nines will be used for the championship, placing a premium on course management and adaptation.

With none of the LPGT players having competed on the layout before, Monday’s official practice round and Tuesday’s pro-am will provide valuable opportunities to study the course, assess its playing conditions and prepare for the tournament proper.

The challenge is further heightened by the presence of seven players ranked inside the TLPGA’s current top 10. No. 3 Min Jou Chen leads the group, followed by Han Hsuan Yu, Ching Huang, Hsin Lee, Shih Cheng Hsuan, Jessica Peng and Ya Chun Chang.

Several of the circuit’s recent winners are also in the field, adding further depth to the championship.

Thailand’s Nook Sukapan comes in fresh from her victory in last week’s Straits Cup Ladies Classic, while Japan’s Harumi Yoshikuwa captured the YTS and Suncity Futures events in August. Han Hsuan Yu also carries winning form, having topped the Taiwan Prosperity Ladies Open in June.

Other notable winners in the lineup include Thailand’s Sherman Santiwiwatthanaphong, who dominated the CTBC Ladies Open in May; Cheng Hsuan Shih, champion of the KGI Bank TLPGA Futures; and Japan’s Yuria Sonoda, winner of the Nan-Tou Golf and Country Club Futures last April.

The visiting LPGT players, however, are set to embrace the challenge.

Princess Superal, Marvi Monsalve, Sarah Ababa, Harmie Constantino, Kayla Nocum, Lois Kaye Go, Mafy Singson, Chihiro Ikeda, Velinda Castil, Kristine Fleetwood and Rev Alcantara are all in the mix, bringing a blend of experience, competitive form and international exposure to the Philippine side.

Jiwon Lee, Seo Yun Kim, Monica Mandario, Gretchen Villacencio and Eunhua Nam complete the LPGT professional contingent, while ICTSI-backed amateurs Lisa Sarines, Mona Sarines and Isabella Taganas will also see action in the championship.

The Philippines has yet to claim a victory in the LPGT-TLPGA co-sanctioned events since 2018. However, Pauline del Rosario won the TLPGA and Royal Open in 2017, becoming the first Filipina to win on one of the region’s premier circuits.

Meanwhile, Daniella Uy’s fourth-place finish in 2019 stands as the best performance by a visiting Filipina during the joint tour.

That record provides added motivation for the LPGT players as they take on a field packed with proven winners and highly ranked TLPGA stars.

As Ariana Grande herself sang, “God is a woman.”

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Greta Gerwig has confirmed that veteran actress Meryl Streep will be the voice of the lion Aslan in her Netflix movie adaptations of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” the popular book series by C.S. Lewis.

Speculations regarding Streep’s involvement have been circulating for a year but Gerwig made the casting official in an interview with Empire magazine which shared a first look image of deity-like animal.

Gerwig’s take on Aslan sees the talking lion with visible colors on his coat and whiskers, but standing out are the feline’s heterochromic eyes. The creative design, according to the director, is inspired by the late rock star David Bowie.

“I wanted someone who was profound but not pretentious, who had gravitas but not morose self-seriousness. Someone who could communicate depth and pathos as well as joy and delight,” Gerwig said about tapping Streep for a second time after 2019’s “Little Women.”

“I wanted someone who was older than 70, so there was a wisdom of experience, but who also had the capacity of fresh wonder, like a child. And also to be one of the greatest actors to ever do it. That list is not a long one,” she also said.

Bowie isn’t the only inspiration for the film as Gerwig also credited the music of Paul McCartney, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant for assuring her.

“Narnia is literally a world made out of music. It is a world sung to life by Aslan, and rock ‘n roll to me felt like a world made out of music,” the director added.

Gerwig will begin her adaptations of “Narnia” with “The Magician’s Nephew,” the penultimate one penned by Lewis but the first one chronologically.

It will follow the adventure of two children, Digory and Polly (relative newcomers David McKenna and Beatrice Campbell), discovering Narnia after the latter’s uncle Andrew gives them a magical ring.

Also in the film are Carey Mullihan, Ciarán Hinds, Denise Gough, Susan Wokoma, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Samantha Spiro and Emma Mackey as Jadis, the future White Witch.

“Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” will be the first Netflix film to get a wide theatrical release, coming out this February, before moving to the streaming platform in April.

The tropical cyclone outside the Philippine area of responsibility (PAR), with the international name Dujuan, has developed into a severe tropical storm, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said yesterday.

Dujuan was located 2,190 kilometers east-northeast of extreme Northern Luzon, packing maximum sustained winds of 110 kilometers per hour near the center and gusts of up to 135 kph.

The storm is not expected to enter PAR within the next 24 hours as it moves west-northwestward at 30 kph.

Despite Dujuan remaining outside PAR, the southwest monsoon will continue to bring rains to southern parts of the country.

Cloudy skies with scattered rains and thunderstorms due to the monsoon will prevail over Western Visayas, Occidental Mindoro and Palawan.

The Negros Island Region and Zamboanga Peninsula will have partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms.

Metro Manila and the rest of the country will also experience partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rainshowers or thunderstorms due to localized thunderstorms.

A low-pressure area was also monitored outside PAR, located 140 kilometers south of Pag-asa Island in Kalayaan, Palawan.

PAGASA said the LPA has an unlikely chance of developing into a tropical cyclone.

Government subsidies to state-owned corporations fell by 30.5 percent in July, largely reflecting lower support for the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA).

The Bureau of the Treasury showed subsidies to government-owned and-controlled corporations (GOCCs) totaled P6.76 billion in July, down from P9.74 billion a year earlier.

The government grants subsidies to GOCCs to cover operational expenses not supported by their own revenues.

The decline was partly due to the non-recurrence of the P4.43 billion subsidy extended to the PRA in July 2025.

The NIA still received the largest subsidy among GOCCs during the month at P2.23 billion, although this was 33.8 percent lower than the P3.38 billion it received last year.

The Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. followed with P880 million in subsidies in July from zero last year.

The National Dairy Authority came in third with P564 million in July, a large increase from P28 million it received in July 2025.

Among the top subsidy recipients during the month were the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, National Food Authority, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, Philippine Coconut Authority, Intercontinental Broadcasting Corp. or IBC-13, Philippine National Railways, Philippine Children’s Medical Center and National Kidney and Transplant Institute.

The Zamboanga City Special Economic Zone Authority received P4 million, the smallest subsidy during the month.

By categories, subsidies for other government corporations declined by 29.7 percent year-on-year to P3.86 billion in July, accounting for 57 percent of the total subsidies during the month.

Budgetary support for major non-financial government corporations also went down by 31.5 percent to P2.91 billion during the period.

From January to July, total subsidies surged by 95 percent to P121.34 billion from P62.23 billion in the same period in 2025, driven by the P60 billion injected to restore the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. fund.

Members of the House prosecution panel have maintained that their statements on the ongoing impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte were not about the merits of the case, but merely on procedure and summary of the proceedings.

Bicol Saro party-list Rep. Terry Ridon and counsel for the prosecution Benjamin Tolosa Jr. made this assertion as they explained to the Senate impeachment court why they should not be sanctioned for violation of the sub judice rule which barred parties from commenting on the merits of the case.

In his verified answer to the impeachment court’s show cause order, Ridon said his statements only meant to keep the public informed of the status and progress of the proceedings, adding that he has always understood the distinction between reports on what transpired during proceedings, explaining procedural developments and progress of the prosecution.

‘In making these statements, Rep. Ridon never intended to prejudge the case, influence the senator-judges, substitute public discussion for the evidence and arguments properly presented before the honorable court or diminish the authority of the honorable court to determine the merits of the impeachment case,’ he said.

For his part, Tolosa said his statements either concerned procedural matters or merely recounted matters already placed on record fairly and accurately, in good faith and without editorial comment.

He asserted that his statements, when considered in its complete context, did not evaluate a disputed fact, the credibility of a witness, the relevance, weight or sufficiency of evidence.

‘Accordingly, there is no basis for citing the undersigned counsel for violation of Rule 18,’ Tolosa said.

He further contended that his statements did not state that the prosecution’s evidence was already sufficient to warrant the Vice President’s conviction nor did he urge the Senate impeachment court to convict Duterte.

‘The undersigned counsel did not assess the credibility, weight or sufficiency of those statements and admissions, nor did he urge this honorable impeachment court to draw any particular conclusion from it. Instead, it was merely made to explain the prosecution’s decision to reserve its right to call Respondent ,’ Tolosa said.