Sowing seeds across the world

Filipinos around the world are now singing the personal mantra of international tennis star Alexandra Eala. And for that matter, the tennis world is now listening and learning also in their hearts and minds the melody of Eala’s motto: “Kapag lumago, hindi na hihinto.” And it’s beginning to sound like a nation’s hymn to Eala’s feats achieved in this lifetime.

At the recently concluded Wimbledon 2026, Eala was first noticed wearing her usual Nike cap. At 5’9” height, taller than the average Filipina, she puts on her cap to keep in place her long black hair in a pony tail. But what makes it unique is that Eala’s mantra is embroidered on the back of the cap.

As Eala succinctly explained: “Every dream begins as a seed. Once it grows, it cannot be stopped.” She posted this in her Instagram account after becoming the first Filipino to reach the third round at Wimbledon, where she beat reigning champion Iga Swiatek of Poland in a major third-round upset.

The 21-year-old Eala inspires all of us with her wisdom at such young age.

No wonder even President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) could not help becoming a fan boy, gushing at Eala’s Wimbledon feat.

Eala was ranked No. 29 at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships. Thus, Eala made history as the first player from the Philippines ever to be seeded in the singles main draw of a Grand Slam tournament. Her historic run in the tournament ultimately ended with the fourth-round loss to Italy’s Jasmine Paolini.

But with her resilience and unrelenting pursuit of her campaign in the international tennis courts, Eala drew another first-time ever feat. She grabbed last week the Mubadala 2026 DC Open Championship for the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). The Mubadala Open is a prestigious professional WTA 500-level outdoor hardcourt tennis tournament held annually in Washington, D.C.

Fresh from her DC rout of the world’s top-seeded women tennis stars, Eala continued sowing seeds of victories here and there in her tennis journey. From DC, she flew directly to Toronto, Canada where she drew another round of raves and chants from humongous Filipino communities in North America.

After her first game victory in Toronto, Eala spoke in Tagalog to the wild delight of Filipinos watching, cheering and waving the Philippine flag in the stands. Wearing the heart of sports heroine, she politely declined a fan’s request to sign her name over the Philippine flag as souvenir.

“And the emotions continued to spill over when she turned to the crowd that had carried her through the latest chapter of what is now a seven-match winning streak, including the five victories that delivered her a historic WTA title in Washington last week.” The STAR Sports Section capped its report on Eala’s struggle to defeat Caty McNally of the US last Saturday.

After the two-hour, 39-minute battle at Center Court of the Sobeys Stadium with McNally, Eala sought to assuage her fans. They saw her bothered by ankle injury in the middle of the game. “I’m OK,” Eala told her fans. A few seconds of gathering her thoughts, she added: “Yeah, I think I survived. It was so tough.”

Another stellar event that has embraced and imbibed Eala’s mantra is the forthcoming launch of a “sounding rocket” as proudly announced by PBBM. In his penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Congress last July 27, PBBM asked all Filipinos to watch out soon the rocket launching from our first-ever space port that will kick off our country’s journey into outer space.

Dubbed as the “Siklab” rocket program, Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) director-general Gay Jane Perez took off from Eala’s mantra during our weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last week. “It is our goal to develop our local space industry so that Filipino talent takes the option to not only to stay but thrive here at home. Kapag lumago, hindi na hihinto,” Perez waxed lyrical.

“The phrase gives hope. Sometimes life is tough. Life knocks you down but the hope of achieving your dreams is what keeps you going. Whether it’s me, it’s you, I think everybody deserves to dream big. And everybody has the right to go for the dreams they have,” Perez pointed out.

The PhilSA has been undertaking this project since 2022 under a public-private partnership (PPP) model involving private partners Ascend International Gateway Inc. and South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace Inc. Also involved are two other government agencies – the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) headed by administrator and chief executive officer Katrina Ponce-Enrile and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Rhoel Aguda. Both PhilSA and CEZA are agencies attached to the Office of the President.

Aguda said the country’s upcoming sounding rocket launching pad site is aimed at positioning the country as a major player in the global rocket launch industry, rather than just being an observer and consumer of space and satellite-based services and infrastructure. Aguda underscored the significance of locating our country’s first space port near the earth’s equator as the biggest come-on for the trillion-dollar space-related industry.

Enrile explained the areas around the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport in the municipality of Santa Ana fit the requirements for this purpose. She cited the decision of South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace to establish an assembly, integration and testing (AIT) facility on Philippine soil as concrete proof of international investor confidence in this “space corridor ecosystem” that will grow out of this Siklab rocket launch.

Enrile added that space-based applications resulting from the corridor will directly benefit everyday Filipinos by providing precision agriculture data for farmers, accurate ocean monitoring and weather forecasting for fisherfolk, enhanced typhoon tracking for disaster preparedness and improved maritime domain awareness for our archipelagic nation.

She believes the geographic advantages and existing infrastructure of the CEZA freeport zone will enable the space corridor to sow the seeds across the world – and even into space – in propelling the Philippine economy.