Category: Auto Guid

Cynthia Erivo proved to be a friend to Ariana Grande after stepping in when a fan jumped on the pop star during the “Wicked: For Good” premiere in Singapore on Nov. 13. 

Videos circulating on social media show Grande walking arm in arm with Erivo and co-star Michelle Yeoh along a fenced-off fan line when a man suddenly vaulted over the barricade and grabbed the singer. 

Erivo immediately pulled the individual off Grande as security closed in and escorted the man away. Yeoh and Erivo were then seen comforting the “Break Free” singer, who was visibly shaken.

Grande has long been vocal about her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety following a bombing at her 2017 Manchester concert, which left 22 people dead.

The intruder, identified as Johnson Wen, later claimed in an Instagram Story that he had been “freed after being arrested.” According to The Straits Times, he was detained after leaving Sentosa. 

Cynthia Erivo protects Ariana Grande from a ‘Wicked: For Good’ premiere attendee. pic.twitter.com/XQBeQJWZsI

— Pop Base (@PopBase) November 13, 2025

Authorities identified Wen as a known serial intruder who has disrupted several high-profile events, including Katy Perry’s Sydney concert in June, The Weeknd’s concert in October 2024, and the men’s 100m final at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Australian outlet 9News previously reported that Wen is unemployed, living in a backpackers’ hostel, and has amassed about A$20,000 in fines from past security breaches. 

Meanwhile, “Wicked: For Good” follows the success of 2024’s “Wicked: Part One,” which opened to a record-breaking US$100-million domestic debut, the highest opening weekend ever for a musical film. 

Directed by Jon M. Chu, the film stars Grande, Erivo, Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey and Ethan Slater, among others. It is set to premiere in Philippine cinemas on Nov. 19. /ra

(First of three parts)

MANILA, Philippines — Juan Ponce Enrile, once Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s principal lieutenant in planning the dictatorship only to oust him, ended up half a century later as consiglieri to the son.

In 2010, writing for Rogue Magazine, I made Enrile the face of the Emperor card in the Tarot deck and wrote: “Nothing grows under the shade of the Banyan Tree, or so goes the fortune cookie saying familiar in our part of the world. The Patriarch is a political colossus, a living monument, and a wizened, formidable operator to whom all scurry for favor and preferment. For those purely interested in power, or for whom ability fortunately marries with fortune, resulting in both prestige and political clout, to be considered a patriarch is the summit of a career, and the foundation for an enduring line of leaders. Too much success can, of course, as the saying implies, stunt the growth of a successor generation, or even of one’s successors. But this is something best left to journalists, historians, and posterity to puzzle over. It would be impolitic to mention this dire possibility in polite company—or the patriarch’s.”

As it turned out, this was far from Enrile’s political sunset. He would be disgraced again and rehabilitated again, remaining a durable player in politics for another decade and a half.

With his passing comes the opportunity to take stock of his life, one that spanned five distinct phases in which he was never far from center stage, from the mid-20th century to the first quarter of the 21st century.

Enrile I: The Prodigal Son

Like Ferdinand Marcos (Sr.), Juan Ponce Enrile was both an outsider and an insider who came of age at the moment when the certainties of Philippine society were smashed by World War II. Marcos, despite his accomplishments, had been given short shrift by his more pedigreed peers, though he considered himself provincial gentry: His father had achieved modest political standing, but Ferdinand himself would rise to prominence in part due to the manner in which he defended himself on a charge of political murder, and through shrewd networking forged during the murky years of the Japanese occupation.

Juan Ponce Enrile for his part, belonged to that subset of the upper class for whom being born illegitimate would prove a temporary but still psychologically searing obstacle. His authorized version of his own story has him growing up as an impoverished son of a laundrywoman; he benefited from the patronage of minor civil servants and officials whose patronage may have been fostered by the knowledge that his father was a former legislator turned partner in one of the most prestigious Filipino-American law firms of the prewar and immediate postwar period.

After the obligatory (because biodata-burnishing) stint as a young guerrilla, he says he embarked on being reunited with his father, who not only welcomed him but took the life-changing decision to legitimize him. With his academic performance, he was, in time, an up-and-coming lawyer on his own terms, the icing on the cake being that his father made him a junior partner in his firm. There, he gained experience as a corporate, and not criminal, lawyer.

Marcos himself, already a coming man before the war, assiduously dedicated himself to arriving in postwar society. He said all the right things but believed none of it.

Enrile II: The Useful Man

By the time the paths of Juan Ponce Enrile and Ferdinand Marcos (Sr.) crossed in 1964, both were men who’d outgrown the period of deference and dependence on the old upper class. In Marcos’ case, aside from cool calculation, luck served him well: two of his fiercest opponents, Eulogio Rodriguez, a durable prewar and postwar machine politician, and Arsenio Lacson, postwar originator of the iconoclastic urban tough guy in urban politics, had died by then.

After 15 years in the Liberal Party during which he’d wrested the Senate presidency, Marcos found his path to the presidency blocked by his erstwhile party chief, and then incumbent President, Diosdado Macapagal, who decided to renege on a previous promise to serve only one term.

Worse, Macapagal had bungled one of the biggest postwar corruption scandals surrounding influence peddling by an American tycoon, Harry Stonehill, deporting him in a panic, which left implicated officials like Marcos looking quite guilty, indeed.

The opposition Nacionalista Party obligingly welcomed Marcos into its ranks, and in the last hurrah of old-time party politics, Marcos engineered a victory in the party convention. He then won the presidency on the basis of being a guerrilla hero confronting an incumbent who’d collaborated with the Japanese.

Political momentum

In 1967, Filipino voters for the first time rejected a proposed amendment to the Constitution. This created the political momentum for the holding of a Constitutional Convention and the possibility of removing, either by amendment or through an entirely new constitution, term limits on the presidency. This, in turn, opened up one of the tracks Marcos would pursue to perpetuate himself in power.

The moves would require, first of all, his reelection: a feat at which all his predecessors, bar one, had failed.

Up to 1967, Enrile had served in the fiscal side of things, in sensitive posts, first as head of the Bureau of Customs, then as head of the Insurance Commission, and then undersecretary and finally secretary of finance. The series of appointments leading up to 1967 is revealing of Enrile’s usefulness, since that year (1967) also happened to be a crucial midterm election year. (In the Philippines, presidential midterms, in which control of the Senate is decided for the rest of the President’s term, has always served as a referendum on the incumbent president, determining if they will enter the preparatory period for seeking reelection as fatally damaged lame ducks or viable candidates).

From his first job in the politically sensitive, extremely lucrative Bureau of Customs to heading the entire Finance Department, Enrile was obviously the man with the smarts and finesse to build up the Marcos war chest.

But in 1968, Enrile was given a new job: secretary of justice, one he held throughout the period in which Marcos sought, and achieved, the only successful presidential reelection bid since Manuel Quezon’s in 1941. Enrile managed to retain—and increase—Marcos’ confidence in him despite having been widely considered an ally of Rafael Salas, who’d been Marcos’ dynamic executive secretary but who was purged in July 1969. Enrile was proving adept at the byzantine intrigue of court life.

Sub rosa assignment

Marcos himself, in his diary, wrote that he assigned the task of looking into how different regimes declared and ruled, under a state of emergency, in that watershed year, 1969. Again, in a period of increasing radical protest and intensifying political polarization, the selection of Enrile as secretary of justice points to how useful he was—including his sub rosa assignment of researching how to establish a dictatorship.

By February 1970, shortly after Marcos had been assaulted after his State of the Nation Address before Congress and an urban insurrection by students led to a direct attack on the presidential palace in January of that year, Enrile was given the Defense portfolio.

The Marcos-approved story (in a Marcos propaganda channel) goes that it was an ad hoc assignment due to the incumbent Secretary of National Defense showing up drunk in the midst of the student assault on the Palace. Another ad hoc move may have been the ill-fated decision to field Enrile as a senatorial candidate in the unprecedented second midterm election of Marcos, in which his candidates fared badly in marked contrast to his first successful midterm election.

Having fallen on his sword for his chief, electorally speaking, Enrile returned to the Defense Department for the main event: martial law.

(To be continued)

MANILA, Philippines – Charoen Pokphand Foods Philippines Corp. (CPF) is investing $1 billion over five years to scale up its hog production and help restore local swine production to pre-African swine fever (ASF) levels by 2028.

In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said the local business of Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Foods PLC unveiled its plan to raise its hog production capacity to 7 million head by 2030 from the current 1.3 million.

READ: Thai firm to supply PH with 100 live hogs daily

Of the total, 4.8 million will be in Luzon, 1 million in the Visayas and 1.2 million in Mindanao.

Vaccination

The DA said CPF’s expansion plan would help the agency achieve its target of restoring the domestic hog population to pre-ASF levels within the next three years, which involves vaccination and the distribution of breeders.

Citing government data, the DA said the population has declined to about 8 million head from 13 million in 2019, when the first case of ASF was reported.

CPF is also considering nine locations nationwide for agro-industrial complexes, with each spanning roughly 20 hectares.

READ: Still grappling with ASF, Philippine meat imports up 26% in Q1

Each site will feature feed production and hog processing facilities.

The DA said feed plants were expected to produce around 10,000 tons per month, which would require corn output from 5,000 hectares.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. encouraged the company to consider constructing some facilities near major tourist hubs to alleviate food costs.

“This CPF expansion aligns perfectly with President Marcos Jr.’s vision of a zero-kilometer food system—producing food where it’s needed—and advancing agricultural investment to create jobs and ensure food security,” Tiu Laurel said.

Meat imports

CPF announced its significant investment as the country’s meat imports rose by 13.5 percent to 1.18 billion kilograms (kg) in the January to September period from 1.04 billion kg a year prior, data from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed.

As in the past reporting periods, pork cornered 53.4 percent of the total with 632.99 million kg. It reflects a 22.2-percent increase.

Chicken came next with 368.08 million kg, 6.4 percent higher. It captured a market share of 31.1 percent.

Beef, meanwhile, went up by 4.3 percent to 150.15 million kg, equivalent to 12.7 percent.

Brazil is still the country’s leading meat supplier with 39.1 percent, followed by the United States (16.4 percent) and Spain (11.1 percent).

ASF-free zones

The DA recently issued Administrative Circular No. 12, recognizing ASF-free zones within accredited exporting countries, seeking to ensure the safe importation of swine and pork products while protecting the country from ASF.

This means an accredited exporting country may apply for an ASF regionalization, allowing imports from areas free of ASF within their jurisdiction. The accord is valid for two years, subject to regular evaluation.

The applicant country needs to submit an official request addressed to the chief veterinary officer of the Philippines, along with documents and reports, including detailed reports on ASF surveillance, control measures and boundaries of ASF-free regions.

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Keep on reading: Love Knots, November 14, 2025

Kyle Negrito and the Creamline Cool Smashers during a game against Choco Mucho Flying Titans in the PVL Reinforced Conference. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines–Creamline booked a spot in the PVL Reinforced Conference quarterfinals with a 25-17, 25-17, 25-23 win over Choco Mucho on Thursday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The defending champions looked in control early, taking the first two sets, but Choco Mucho rallied in the third, briefly leading 23-22 behind Royse Tubino’s backrow attack.  Creamline held its composure, with Coco Schwan and Michele Gumabao delivering timely hits to close out the match in one hour, 18 minutes.

READ: PVL: Creamline reaches for experience to shut door on Nxled

“The team really performed and responded well today, especially our ousted hitters. They worked hard and so did our bench players. Teamwork helped us win today,” said Creamline coach Sherwin Meneses.

Schwan led Creamline with 15 points, Gumabao added nine, and Tots Carlos, Pangs Panaga, Sheen Toring, Alyssa Valdez, and Lorie Bernardo combined for 24 more, highlighting the team’s depth. Playmaker Kyle Negrito, named Best Player of the Game, delivered 18 excellent sets and six points.

“We know we can’t be complacent in the coming games. We need to work for every point, every possession. Our main goal is to execute our system properly, and we’re happy to have done that today, especially in straight sets,” said Negrito.

With the Flying Titans breathing down their necks, the Cool Smashers turned to their experience to fend off any attempts to extend the game.

“We know that if we let our guard down, Choco Mucho will take advantage. We worked hard for that,” Negrito added.

For Choco Mucho, Isa Molde led with 11 points, while import Marlee Smith and Royse Tubino added five and six points, respectively. But the Flying Titans’ late rally fell short.

Creamline improved to 5-2 ahead of the knockout quarterfinals, which begin November 24 at the Araneta Coliseum. Choco Mucho ends its campaign at 2-5.

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has directed concerned government agencies to continue providing assistance to those affected by Typhoon Uwan in Catanduanes, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said.

The directive aims to ensure that typhoon victims can recover and rebuild their lives as soon as possible.

“The assistance includes the Integrated Disaster Shelter Assistance Program (IDSAP) of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) to provide cash assistance to residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged by Super Typhoon Uwan,” the PCO said in a press release.

Earlier, Marcos visited Tubli Elementary School in Barangay Tubli, Caramoran town, to assess the damage caused by Uwan as well as by Super Typhoon Pepito a year earlier.

Of the school’s 23 classrooms, one was completely destroyed, 14 sustained major damage, and the rest suffered minor damage due to Uwan. The incident affected 739 learners and 30 staff members.

To support students and displaced residents, the government donated two Starlink internet satellite units—one to Tubli Elementary School and another to the Caramoran local government unit.

Marcos also inspected damaged houses and the seawall in the same barangay.

 “Caramoran has reported 558 totally damaged houses and 2,127 partially damaged houses,” the PCO said.

 “In Barangay Tubli, where the seawall helped protect the coastal community, there were 158 totally damaged and 370 partially damaged houses while nearly all motor bancas were destroyed during the super typhoon,” it added.

Typhoon Uwan left at least 27 dead and around 2.4 million residents displaced, based on the latest data from the Office of Civil Defense.

In a social media post on Monday, Marcos lauded emergency response teams for Typhoon Uwan and added that the preemptive evacuations they carried out “made all the difference.”

“I want to thank our local governments, first responders, and volunteers for acting quickly and working together to keep our people safe. The preemptive evacuations you carried out made all the difference. Your prompt action is very significant,” Marcos said in the post. /mr