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A 58-year-old businesswoman was arrested by operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Lapu-Lapu City Field Unit in an entrapment operation in sitio Libo, Barangay Tayod, Consolacion, Cebu after allegedly offering a property in Carcar to a buyer for P40 million without authority to sell.

The CIDG identified the suspect as alias ‘Fannie,’ a widow and resident of Barangay Palanas, Ronda, Cebu.

The operation is in line with the CIDG’s flagship project, “OLEA,” an entrapment operation targeting alleged estafa under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code.

According to authorities, the operation was initiated after a prospective buyer named Vange complained about an alleged fake or fraudulent land transaction in Proper Bonsai, Barangay Bolinawan, Carcar City, Cebu.

CIDG said the suspect allegedly offered the land for P40 million and has already received a large amount as a down payment from the buyer.

However, the CIDG said it received information that the property may have already been sold or transferred to another person.

Fannie, meanwhile, presented documents as proof that the land was still in her name and that she could still sell it.

The CIDG coordinated with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (DENR-CENRO) to verify the ownership and status of the property, including the authenticity of the documents presented.

Based on certification from DENR-Argao CENRO, the said land is covered by Free Patent Application No. 072214-217 in the name of Fannie.

However, the certification also stated that no patent had been issued for that property at the time of verification.

The arrested individual said that she did not sell land that did not belong to her and that she had already spent a lot of money to get it registered.

“Nangita ko og paagi para maka-transfer or maka-process ko ug maka-register nangita ko og kwarta, nangutang para makakuha ko anang yutaa,” Fannie said.

She added that the title to the property is still pending.

During the entrapment operation, a P1,000 bill used as dusted money, a bundle of paper representing P1 million, a Starbucks paper bag, a PSBank check, two types of ID, a Tecno smartphone, and a Contract to Sell were recovered from the suspect.

The authorities added that Fannie was previously arrested through a warrant of arrest for alleged estafa under Article 315, Paragraph 2(D) of the Revised Penal Code and was listed as a Regional Most Wanted Person Level 6.

The police have prepared the documents for the submission of the appropriate criminal complaint to the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for inquest proceedings. Meanwhile, the arrested person is currently detained at the Custodial Facility of CIDG-7.

From the sea to the range, the halls and the hardcourts, Team Philippines launches its drive for glory as full action begins at the 2026 Asian Games here.

The morning after the opening ceremony, Filipino bets with strong podium chances take center stage, led by wushu artist Agatha Wong, triathletes Fernando Casares, Iñaki Lorbes, Kim Mangrobang and Raven Alcoseba, shooters Jayson Valdez and Franchette Shayne Quiroz, and modern pentathletes Samuel German and Michael Ver Anton Comaling.

The women’s soft tennis team will go for broke in its bid to upset host Japan in the semifinals at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center; Prince Agustin, who battled back through the repechage, fights for bronze in teqball; while the Gilas Pilipinas Women seek a follow-up to their rousing debut against Kazakhstan as they go for win No. 2 versus Hong Kong in their 9 a.m. (Manila time) face-off at the Aichi International Arena.

While hopes are high for aces like Carlos Yulo, Alex Eala, EJ Obiena and Kayla Sanchez, Philippine Olympic Committee President Bambol Tolentino said there are many others across various fronts who can deliver.

Philippine Sports Commission chair Pato Gregorio expressed the country’s full support.

‘As the Asian Games officially begin in Nagoya, the whole nation rallies behind our athletes as they carry the flag and the dreams of our country,’ he said.

‘You have worked hard and sacrificed much to be here. Focus your mind and remember your purpose – para sa sarili, para sa pamilya, para sa bayan. Sa bawat laban, ipakita ninyo ang puso ng atletang Pilipino.Lahat kami ay nakaabang at nakasuporta. Laban, Pilipinas!’

There is Wong, a six-time Southeast Asian Games gold medalist aiming for her first Asian Games gold. Not to be counted out are the triathletes and the shooters.

Triathlon chief Tom Carrasco described Casares, Lorbes, Mangrobang and Alcoseba as ‘sharp and battle-ready.’

Shooting secretary general Iryne Garcia is optimistic about podium finishes, mentioning Quiroz as one of their top bets along with shotgun entries Hagen Topacio (trap) and Enrique Leandro Enriquez (skeet).

‘I think we have a chance,’ said Garcia, pointing out that the shooters were primed for the Games with the help of foreign coaches – an Italian for skeet, a Kazakh for rifle, and an Uzbek for pistol.

The team suffered setbacks before the Games. Young triathlon star Kira Ellis, a double-gold winner in the last SEA Games, was forced to withdraw after injuries in a freak training accident in August. Olympian shooter Paul Brian Rosario also had to skip the Games after a spill during a bike ride weeks ago.

But hopes are high that their teammates will carry the fight.

Much of the focus on Day 1 will be on Wong in Taijiquan and Taijijian in wushu and the combo of Princess Catindig, Noelle Manalac, Christy Sañosa, Shyryn Salazar and Hilary Paas as they pursue ambition against Japan in the soft tennis women’s team semifinals.

They have already made history with a guaranteed medal – a feat the team has been chasing since its first Asian Games participation in 1998 in Bangkok.

Wong wages her own chase.

‘I’m giving it my all, all my effort, all the amount of discipline that I can muster and courage,’ said Wong, entered in a field of 13 in a discipline where a participant performs bare-hand tai chi and tai chi straight sword.

She’s good for bronze in 2018 then skidded to fifth in 2023.

The well-attended reception celebrating the 81st anniversary of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was full of diplomats, business leaders and friends of Vietnam. The size of the gathering was impressive, but what really resonated with me was the unmistakable confidence of a country that knows where it wants to go – and intends to get there quickly.

I have followed Vietnam’s progress for many years, yet I was still surprised by the scale of its economic ambition. Measured in nominal dollars, Vietnam is still roughly a half-trillion-dollar economy. But in purchasing-power terms, it has already crossed the trillion-dollar mark, and its leaders are openly pursuing double-digit growth and developed-country status by 2045. It is no longer merely an emerging market selling garments and footwear – it is becoming a major manufacturing, electronics and technology center.

The World Bank says Vietnam’s economy expanded by eight percent in 2025, the fastest in ASEAN, supported by exports and public investment. Despite global uncertainty, its growth momentum remains among the strongest in the region. Samsung, Intel, Foxconn and other international companies have made Vietnam an essential part of their production networks. Foreign-invested enterprises account for about 70 percent of its exports.

Vietnam’s advantage is not that it has no problems. It faces expensive infrastructure demands, energy constraints, an aging population, climate threats and the risk of depending too heavily on exports. Its political and economic systems are also very different from ours. We should not pretend that everything Vietnam does can or should be copied by the Philippines.

But one lesson is difficult to dispute: when Vietnam decides that an investment is strategically important, its government moves with urgency. Investors are given a clear signal about priorities, incentives, land, infrastructure and timelines. Government agencies are expected to coordinate rather than compete. When the global minimum tax threatened to reduce the value of traditional tax incentives, Vietnam worked on an investment support fund to help qualified high-technology projects with infrastructure, fixed assets and worker training. It did not simply complain that the rules had changed – it adjusted its offer.

That decisiveness shows in the numbers. According to the ASEAN Investment Report cited by the Asian Development Bank, Vietnam received about $20 billion in foreign direct investment in 2024, compared with $8.9 billion for the Philippines. We remain one of Asia’s faster-growing economies, but red tape, high electricity costs and weak infrastructure continue to hold us back. These are not new discoveries. Investors have been telling us the same things for years.

The Philippines has many advantages Vietnam would gladly have: a young, English-speaking workforce; a strategic location; rich mineral resources; democratic institutions; deep cultural ties with the United States and a large domestic market. We have passed important reforms and created attractive incentives. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has personally worked hard to bring major investors to the country. Our economic managers know what must be done.

Yet problems often begin after the announcements. A prospective investor hears strong assurances at the top, then encounters overlapping permits, changing interpretations, slow local approvals and agencies that don’t share the same timetable. Capital is patient only up to a point. A billion-dollar factory cannot wait indefinitely while papers travel from desk to desk. When another country can offer a credible decision, serviced land, reliable power and a firm schedule, the investment goes there – and so do the jobs, technology and supply chains.

The emerging Pax Silica initiative makes this competition even more urgent. Led by the US, Pax Silica seeks trusted and resilient supply chains for the age of artificial intelligence – from critical minerals and energy to semiconductors, data infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. The Philippines is already positioned within this effort, with Clark and our mineral resources offering enormous possibilities. Vietnam has also made clear it is ready to participate.

We should welcome Vietnam’s interest. Pax Silica should not be viewed as a contest in which one ASEAN neighbor must lose for another to win. Secure supply chains require several trusted locations. The real question is whether each country can convert diplomatic alignment into factories, laboratories, power projects, training programs and employment.

Vietnam will arrive at the table with a powerful proposition: scale, speed, manufacturing experience and disciplined execution, while the Philippines offers talent, resources, strategic geography and one of America’s strongest alliances. On paper, our hand is excellent. But investors do not place billions of dollars on paper advantages. They invest where decisions become permits, where permits become construction and where construction begins on time.

We should therefore establish a true fast lane for strategic investments – not another committee, but a single empowered mechanism with fixed deadlines and accountable officials. Incentives must be competitive, but certainty is often the greatest incentive of all. Power, ports, roads, digital connectivity and skilled workers must be prepared before investors ask for them. And once the President gives the green light, the rest of government must move in the same direction.

At Vietnam’s anniversary reception, the atmosphere was celebratory, but the underlying message was serious. Eighty-one years after independence, Vietnam is not looking backward. It is measuring the distance to its next factory, its next technology hub and its next stage of national development.

Filipinos should admire that achievement without becoming discouraged. The Philippines can move just as fast, and perhaps even faster. But opportunity does not wait for bureaucracy to finish deliberating. In the race for investment, countries that decide today build tomorrow. Those that delay might one day discover that tomorrow has already been built somewhere else – in the end, it’s our children’s future that may be gone forever.

The moment I received one of those long, italicized ‘share as received’ forwarded messages from Kat, my friend of many years, it actually stopped me in my tracks instead of getting scrolled past.

Somewhere in nearly everyone’s phone is a folder of forwarded messages nobody asked for; most are forgettable, but occasionally one lands with more weight than expected.

One has circulated quietly for years, describing retirement in three unsentimental stages.

From 58 to 64, your workplace begins drifting away from you no matter how influential you once were; you become, in the world’s eyes, simply ordinary again.

From 65 to 71, society itself loosens its grip; old colleagues vanish, and people at your former office may not even recognize you.

And from 72 onward, even family begins, gently and without malice, to draw back, busy with their own lives, their visits now a genuine gift instead of an obligation.

And then the message concludes with an unflinching line: eventually, even the earth is ready to let you go!

It’s blunt, occasionally clumsy in its phrasing, and still undeniably honest, which is probably why it keeps getting forwarded instead of forgotten.

But I think it’s only telling half the story, and Ecclesiastes chapter three tells us the other half.

Solomon opens that chapter with his famous poem: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.

Read against the forwarded message, that poem suddenly sounds less like poetry and more like a diagnosis.

Every stage that message describes, the fading relevance, the thinning circle, the quieter house is simply Solomon’s ancient observation playing out in a modern inbox.

Seasons change. Influence fades. People move on, not out of cruelty, but because that’s what seasons genuinely do.

Pretending otherwise, clinging to the identity of a season that has already ended, only makes the following one more painful than it needs to be.

But right in the middle of that same chapter, Solomon writes something the forwarded message never quite gets to: ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.’

That one line changes everything about how we should read the three stages.

Here is the real reason the fading of relevance, of recognition, of company stings as deeply as it does.

It isn’t only sentimentality. It’s evidence of something eternal lodged inside us that refuses to treat any earthly season as the final word.

If we were purely creatures of this world, with nothing eternal woven into us, we could simply adjust to each stage the way a thermostat adjusts to temperature, with no ache, no resistance, just recalibration.

But we don’t recalibrate that easily, and Solomon tells us exactly why: eternity is in the heart, and nothing under the sun was ever built large enough to hold it.

That reframes the entire arc the forwarded message describes.

The fading isn’t proof that life eventually empties out. It’s proof we were never intended to find our final significance in a workplace, a social circle, or even our own family’s daily attention, genuinely good things, all of them, but never eternal ones.

They were always going to loosen their grip, precisely because they were never designed to be the place where our deepest significance lived.

This is where the message concludes. ‘Eat your favorite food with joy, do your favorite work with zeal, stay in touch with old friends because life comes only once’ is wise as far as it goes, but incomplete without what Solomon adds a few verses later: ‘eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all your toil for this is the gift of God.’

Not a consolation prize but an actual gift, received from God’s hand, meant to be enjoyed precisely because it’s temporary and ordinary, not despite that fact.

So yes, call your old friends. Enjoy your favorite meal without guilt. Do meaningful work with real enthusiasm for as long as your body allows.

That part of the message is worth keeping.

But don’t stop at ‘life comes only once, so make the most of it.’

Solomon’s deeper counsel is that life, precisely because every season eventually fades, was never meant to be where your soul finally rests.

Eternity was placed in your heart for a reason, and it was never satisfied by any stage of life to begin with, no matter how full, how influential, or how surrounded by people you once were.

The world will indeed loosen its grip on you, stage by stage, exactly as that message describes.

But Someone with an eternal grip has already made sure that goodbye was never the final word.

Every season under the sun eventually ends.

The One who placed eternity in your heart does not.

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Filipino boxers Mark ‘Rasta Mac’ Vicelles and Marlon ‘Nightmare’ Tapales carry different missions when they see action abroad on September 26.

Vicelles (21-2-1, 11 KOs) will challenge reigning International Boxing Federation (IBF) light flyweight champion Thanongsak Simsri (40-1, 35 KOs) of Thailand at the Fujisan Messe Exhibition Hall in Shizuoka, Japan.

The winner of the Vicelles-Simsri clash will be obliged to make his next title defense against Regie ‘Filipino Phenom’ Suganob of the PMI Bohol Boxing Stable.

Suganob earned a mandatory shot at the IBF 108-pound crown after scoring a fifth-round knockout over his former South African tormentor, Sivenathi Nontshinga, in their IBF title eliminator that headlined ‘Kumong Bol-anon XXVI’ last September 12 at the Bohol Wisdom School (BWS) Gymnasium in Tagbilaran City.

Tapales (41-5, 22 KOs), meanwhile, will make his featherweight debut against grizzled Thai veteran Nirun Baonok (15-33,11 KOs) in Pattaya, Thailand.

JC Manangquil, Tapales’ promoter and manager, said the fight will serve as an acid test for the former two-division world titlist as he bids to become a three-division world champion.

Tapales once held court in the World Boxing Organization (WBO) bantamweight and International Boxing Federation (IBF) super bantamweight divisions

Angelo Que returns to the Philippine Golf Tour spotlight with his sights set on another championship, while Aidric Chan and multi-titled Clyde Mondilla also rejoin the hunt as a formidable field converges for the ICTSI Negros Occidental Classic beginning Monday, September 21, at the Negros Occidental Golf and Country Club here.

Fresh from a 1-2 finish at Summit Point last week, Que and Chan had been uncertain about their participation in the sixth leg of the PGT as they were also campaigning in Taiwan. But after both failed to make the weekend cut, the two are expected to make the trip home in time for the opening round of the P2.5-million championship.

Mondilla, meanwhile, skipped the Summit Point stop to honor a previous commitment but has confirmed his return this week, further deepening an already talent-packed cast for the 10-leg circuit organized by Pilipinas Golf Tournaments, Inc.

With three of the tour’s big guns back in the fold, defending champion Rupert Zaragosa’s bid for a third straight championship here faces another stern test at the tight and demanding Marapara layout.

Zaragosa headlines a field that also includes five-time Order of Merit winner Tony Lascuña, Jhonnel Ababa, Reymon Jaraula, Zanieboy Gilaon, Guido van der Valk, Fidel Concepcion and Jeffren Lumbo – a group whose contrasting styles and experience could make for another intriguing four-day battle.

The Marapara course is expected to put a premium on precision and course management, with its tight confines leaving little room for wayward shots. And with partly cloudy conditions, scattered rainshowers and thunderstorms forecast throughout the tournament week, the elements could further complicate the challenge.

Wind, in particular, could become a significant factor, forcing the players to constantly adjust their shot selection and strategy as they negotiate the layout over four rounds.

All that sets the stage for another wide-open title fight, with several players eager to make their move in the second half of the season.

Chan remains one of the biggest names to watch as he continues his search for his breakthrough PGT victory. The young shotmaker, who already won an Asian Development Tour leg, will again be tested against a deep field that includes Russell Bautista, Dino Villanueva, Elee Bisera, Nilo Salahog and Arnold Villacencio, along with foreign contenders Collin Wheeler, Ha Taewon, Kim Tae Soo, Lee Song and Jiseung Cheon.

Filipino-American Ivan Yabut also hopes to turn around a string of disappointing results and finally make a serious run at the championship after struggling to impose his game on the country’s demanding layouts.

Former leg winners Jay Bayron, Mars Pucay, Gerald Rosales, Jerson Balasabas, Ira Alido and Michael Bibat are likewise looking to rediscover the form that once made them regular title threats on the circuit.

The younger generation will also be out to make its presence felt, led by Gab Manotoc, Kristoffer Arevalo, Josh Jorge, Jonas Magcalayo and Leandro Bagtas. All five have shown flashes of potential and will be eager to get into contention early and sustain the pressure as the week progresses.

But much of the attention will inevitably center on Que.

At 47, the veteran remains as hungry as ever, and his recent results suggest that his competitive fire has hardly dimmed. A three-time Asian Tour winner, Que captured the Caliraya Springs leg in dramatic fashion, edging Lascuña by one stroke before following it up with another impressive victory at Summit Point, where he beat Chan by two.

Those triumphs have placed Que firmly in the spotlight as he goes after a third victory of the season – and another strong push toward retaining the Order of Merit crown.

More than anything, however, Que’s recent run has underscored the depth of his experience and his ability to adapt, qualities that could prove invaluable on a Marapara course where patience and precision are likely to be just as important as power.

For Zaragosa, the challenge is to keep his winning streak alive against a field that has become considerably stronger with the return of Que, Chan and Mondilla.

For the rest, it is an opportunity to seize the momentum as the PGT enters the second half of its 10-leg campaign.

And with the wind expected to swirl, rain potentially altering conditions and a loaded field ready to pounce, the Negros Occidental Classic could once again come down to who can best keep his game – and nerves – under control when the pressure mounts.