KaladKaren makes ‘herstory’ again on ‘TV Patrol’

Fresh from her historic Best Supporting Actress win.

Last week, Jervi Li — popularly known as ‘KaladKaren’ — became the first ever transwoman to win the coveted Best Supporting Actress award at the first Summer Metro Manila Film Festival. With her win, KaladKaren is also the first ever transwoman to win such an award in local cinema history. She joins the league of Iya Minah, who won in the 2018 Cinema One Originals festival as the first transwoman to win the coveted Best Actress award — also the first ever in Philippine cinema.

It appears that making history doesn’t stop right there for ‘KaladKaren’.

Tonight, April 17, 2023, she appeared in ABS-CBN’s flagship primetime newscast ‘TV Patrol’ as the first transwoman presenter of the Star Patrol segment. To date, the said position had only been helmed by cisgender females, with Christian Bables being the first ever cisgender male personality to present the celebrity news segment during the March 24, 2023 edition of the program.

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Like Bables, she also presented the Sports Patrol segment, hence also becoming the first transwoman to present the said sports segment. She was also tasked to introduce two feature items, which leads to her presenting three segments in the primetime news program this evening.

Ultimately, and the most important milestone of them all, KaladKaren is also the first transwoman in Philippine TV history to guest anchor in a flagship primetime newscast.

Prior to her historic ‘Celebrity Star Patroller’ appearance, KaladKaren had also set quite a few records in other programs. The most notable of which was being the first transwoman morning show host when she presented ABS-CBN’s ‘Umagang Kay Ganda’ from 2018 up to its end in 2020.

Her current line of work in media also does not stray from her educational background. KaladKaren actually graduated from the University of the Philippines as a magna cum laude in broadcast communication. She also was a part of the UP SAMASKOM, a university club that also stages Live Aids, an event where she had impersonated ‘TV Patrol’ anchor Karen Davila in the past.

Her impersonation of Davila was also vital KaladKaren’s rise to fame in 2017. In a viral video on social media, KK copied Davila’s hosting style in ‘The Correspondents’ — a current affairs show of ABS-CBN.