TWO HOLLYWOOD-based, UST-bred journalists are set to visit the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters on Nov. 10.
Spouses Ruben and Janet Nepales will set foot on campus for an “afternoon of nostalgia trip” and “kuwentuhan” with Artlets students and faculty upon the invitation of creative writing chair Prof. Joselito Delos Reyes.
Both products of Artlets, Ruben is an alumnus of the communication program, while Janet is a journalism alumna.
Both were writers for The Flame, the official student publication of Artlets, while Janet Nepales also became an editor for the Varsitarian.
After graduation, Janet wrote for top newspapers and magazines in the Philippines including The Times Journal, Parade Magazine, People’s Journal, and Manila Bulletin.
She writes the weekly column, “Hollywood Insider,” on GMA News Online and is also the Hollywood correspondent of GMA Network.
Some of her accolades include honors from the Los Angeles Press Club’s National Entertainment Journalism Awards and the Southern California Journalism Awards, the Philippine American Press Club’s Plaridel Awards, The Outstanding Filipino Americans Award for Outstanding Journalist, and the Los Angeles Philippine International Film Festival’s Outstanding Women in Film Journalism Award.
Ruben migrated to the United States in the 1980s and became the first Filipino to become a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which hands out the Golden Globes.
He also became the first and only Filipino to be elected chairman of the HFPA board in 2012.
In September 2022, Nepales received the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism from President Joe Biden during The Outstanding Filipinos in America Award in New York.
He won first prize in the individual blog category in the Southern California Journalism Awards in 2021 and 2022 for his work “Only IN Hollywood,” and first prize in the entertainment news or feature category in 2017.
His work “My Filipino Connection: The Philippines in Hollywood,” won in the print journalism-book category of the Migration Advocacy and Media Awards presented by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas.
Ruben’s nonfiction book, “Through a Writer’s Lens,” bagged first prize in the 2020-2021 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award and copped first prize in the Film Feature on Actors (Online) category in the same awards in 2023.
