Alex Eala won her first WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) title Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. She beat Hungarian Panna Udvardy, in the Guadalajara 125 Open final at Panamerican Center in Zapopan, Mexico.
The Filipina, 20, is ranked #75 in the world. She won over American Kayla Day in semis, Italian Nicola Fossa Huergo in quarterfinal, American Varvara Lepchenko in second round, and Dutch Arianne Hartonoin first round.
Alex Eala debuted on WTA four in 2021. At 2025 Miami Open in March, Eala defeated three Grand Slam champions to reach the semi-final rounds, eventually losing to American Jessica Peguia. Last August at the U.S. Open, Eala survived in the first round to become the first Filipino to win a main draw match at a Grand Slam event.
Alex Eala’s honors:
highest-ranking Filipino player in WTA Tour history;
the first to enter the top 100;
the first to defeat multiple top-five players and major champions and to reach a tour-level final in the Open Era.
With conundrums and paradoxes that keep us aghast and flummoxed as the magnitude of the fraud slams public consciousness, such as:
Cebu is finally included in the revelations of places where projects are linked to contractors who allegedly colluded with DPWH and congressmen and/or senators in the multi-billion-peso fraud.
After the emergence of GM Builders and Cebuano contractor Allan Qirante on the national stage, three projects in three towns of Cebu province were publicly identified as probably tainted by the scandal.
How large is the amount of public funds involved:
1 trillion, 194 billion, 591 million 902 thousand pesos! The numbers disclosed cover the years from 2022 to 2025 although the amount of public funds actually stolen is still
Why the suspected thieves are the ones investigating when they are among the alleged perpetrators, who include:
--- Legislators from Senate and House of Representatives who appropriated or inserted the funding items in the national budget;
--- Contractors who received and distributed the money after under-performing or “ghosting” the work and falsifying the papers;
--- DPWH officials who oversaw the work and certified to the performance of the contract.
Why the President has been holding punches in going after the suspects, refusing to name names and disclose evidence, saying, “Where are the investigative reporters?”
The President has the records. The agencies with the expertise to assess and gather evidence are under his command: COA, the NBI. The President has the prosecutors to go after the suspects: Department of Justice.
Instead of making the wheels of justice move faster and surer, the President may just be using the scandal as leverage to keep his political allies under his fold.
Whatever his moves, he must share the blame. The amounts were lost during his watch, although the fraud must have begun earlier, during Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016-2022 term.
No one has been charged, arrested. No hold-departure order (HDO) or lookout bulletin order (LBO) has been issued. Moves against suspected fruits of the fraud -- cash, cars and other assets -- have been slow, with vehicles being hidden and money transferred to other names and places.