The Ally Challenge Introduces The Concert @ 17
Officials of the Ally Challenge presented by McLaren announced the details surrounding the tournament’s newest event. The Concert @17 presented by Soaring ally challenge tickets Eagle Casino & Resort featuring Mark Farner will be held Friday evening, Aug. 26, following the first round of tournament competition at the official PGA TOUR Champions event’s famed 17th hole.
In recognition of The Concert @17, the tournament is extending special introductory pricing for tickets to the 2022 Ally Challenge presented by McLaren by 17 days. Best offers are now available through June 27. For a complete listing of ticket options, visit the tournament website at theallychallenge.Com.
Access to The Concert @17, and The Ally Challenge Community Concert featuring Kane Brown, require the purchase of a valid tournament ticket for the day each concert is hosted, or a weekly ticket option.
“The Concert @17 presented by Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort is a great addition to tournament week at the Ally Challenge,” said Rob Frederick, tournament representative. “Building a first-class experience for our spectators has been a primary goal of the tournament from the beginning, and to bring classic rock legend and Michigan native Mark Farner to the famed 17th hole at Warwick Hills on Friday night is a big win for our fans.”
The tournament also announced that the primary beneficiary of net proceeds for the fifth-annual The Ally Challenge presented by McLaren will be the United Way of Genesee County (UWGC). The 2022 tournament will mark the fourth consecutive year that UWGC has been included as a primary beneficiary of The Ally Challenge.
The Ally Challenge presented by McLaren has established a legacy of giving in southeastern Michigan, including raising more than $4.5 million in support of local charities in the greater Flint area and beyond in its first four years. The tournament will continue to positively impact the community in Genesee County and beyond in 2022 through its support of UWGC, as well as the return of the Birdies for Charity presented by Ally and Tickets FORE Charity programs.
Birdies for Charity presented by Ally is a grassroots charity platform, now in its fifth year, that serves as an extension of The Ally Challenge presented by McLaren’s mission to positively impact non-profit organizations in the greater Flint area. This successful program has included nearly 80 participating Michigan 501(c)(3) organizations and raised more than $1.6 million since it began in 2018.
All qualified non-profit organizations that register for Birdies for Charity presented by Ally are eligible to participate in the tournament’s newest charitable initiative, Tickets FORE Charity. This program, that debuted in 2021, gives charities an opportunity to earn extra dollars for their cause based on attendance during the final round of The Ally Challenge.
Each time a ticket, purchased with a charity’s special promo code, is scanned at a tournament admissions gate Sunday, Aug. 28, The Ally Challenge presented by McLaren will donate $10 to that designated charity. In addition, a $5,000 bonus pool will be split amongst the top three charities receiving the most scanned tickets.
The 2022 Ally Challenge presented by McLaren will take place the week of August 22 – 28 at renowned Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc.
The Ally Challenge will be one of the premier Regular Season events on the PGA TOUR Champions in 2022, which will give way to the Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs ¾ a season-ending, three-tournament series used to determine the TOUR’s season-long champion.
All three rounds of The Ally Challenge presented by McLaren will be broadcast on Golf Channel.
For more information about The Ally Challenge, visit theallychallenge.Com. For the latest Ally Challenge news and updates on social media, follow the tournament on Twitter and Instagram at @AllyChallenge and on Facebook at Facebook.Com/AllyChallenge.
After 6 Years, Duterte Leaves Philippine Environment, Its Defenders In Crisis
MANILA, Philippines – By noon of June 30, 2022, Rodrigo Duterte will end his term as Philippine president, leaving behind a nation rocked by his strongman rule and in the midst of the twin crises of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout his term, Duterte has kept his tough-talking demeanor, which has propelled him from Davao City Hall to Malacañang. Beyond his usual tirade against drug users, he showed a similar ruthless veneer against environmental polluters and abusers, promising to wield the full extent of the law for crimes against the environment.
“The military is directed to intensify…its support role against illegal logging, illegal mining…and other destructive practices that aggravate the devastation of our natural resources,” Duterte said in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July 2016.
“I have to protect the country,” he said, adding a stern warning, “Do not destroy the environment.”
Six years later, however, environmental groups say this promise and warning leave much to be desired.
As Duterte steps down from office, his administration leaves the country’s rich ecosystem and natural resources threatened by big development projects that have been met by strong local opposition. At the same time, environmental defenders find themselves caught in the crosshairs, targeted by the government that once promised to be their ally.Best foot forward
One of Duterte’s earliest acts as president was to appoint the environmental advocate Gina Lopez as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) – a move that was cheered by green groups but left the mining sector and other big developers uneasy.
As soon as she took office, the tenacious Lopez, who previously led the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission and other environmental projects in the country, dealt a swift blow to the mining industry. In 2016, she launched an industry-wide audit of mining companies that resulted in the closure and suspension of 28 mines.
Duterte actively backed his choice for the DENR post. “Gina and I, we share the same paradigm: the interest of the country must come first,” he said in his SONA in 2016.
But Lopez’s crusade only lasted for 10 months after she failed to hurdle the Commission on Appointments on third review.
“We think the first half of the Duterte government, with all its pomp and circumstance, was honestly full of promise, but eventually it rebounded to just that – promises,” said Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment.
The mines ordered closed or suspended by the DENR under Lopez continued on with their operations, according to an investigation by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
In April 2021, Duterte signed an executive order lifting the nine-year moratorium on new mining agreements, seen to shore up the country’s revenues amid the pandemic. In December that year, then-DENR secretary Roy Cimatu, who succeeded Lopez, likewise signed an administrative order that lifted the four-year ban on open-pit mining, in a full reversal of the protections put in place by his predecessor.Act now, plan later
Since Lopez’s eviction from the DENR, the Duterte administration has pivoted its efforts toward ambitious projects bound by equally ambitious deadlines. In 2018, it set its sights on Boracay. Calling the resort island a “cesspool,” Duterte ordered it closed for six months for rehabilitation – a timeline reminiscent of his campaign promise to eradicate illegal drugs and corruption in three to six months.
Tourism and livelihood in Boracay immediately took a hit. An inter-agency task force was formed to act on the environmental mismanagement in the island, where authorities cracked down on the lack of sewage treatment facilities, illegal settlers on wetlands, and violators of easement rules.
But environmental groups scored the abrupt and punitive approach in the Boracay cleanup, especially after police and military personnel were deployed on the ground. Even the action plan to rehabilitate the island itself came after the closure order; Duterte himself admitted days before that there was no master plan.