PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has chosen a UST philosophy alumnus to lead the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, tasked to protect the life, liberty, and security of media workers.
Jose Torres Jr., who obtained his philosophy degree from the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters, will serve as director of the task force, which monitors and resolves cases of violence against media workers.
Marcos Jr. said the appointment, announced by Malacañang on Nov. 14, was made to protect journalists from threats and violence in the upcoming midterm elections in May 2025.
“I have directed the [task force], chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Justice, to ramp up and intensify operations in relation and in preparation to the upcoming 2025 midterm elections,” the president said.
Torres had been the director of the Philippine Information Agency since May 2023.
A veteran journalist, he served as senior editor of ABS-CBN News Online from 2001 to 2005 before becoming editor in chief of GMA News Online and helping build its online platform.
Torres took theology units at Ateneo de Manila University and earned his diploma in multimedia journalism from Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism in 2012.
He began his career in the 1980s as a writer for the alternative news outfit Philippine News and Features.
In 2010, Torres assumed the managing editor position at the Union of Catholic Asian News in Thailand. He was part of Radio Veritas Asia’s editorial board in 2019 before becoming an editor at large for LiCAS.news, a Catholic news platform based in Bangkok.
Torres also wrote for The Manila Times, The Sunday Paper, and The Philippine Post, and was a sub-editor for Saudi Arabia’s national newspaper, The Saudi Gazette.
He was a two-time recipient of the National Book Award for Journalism, earning the plum for his “Unholy Nation: Stories from a Gambling Republic (2004)” and “Into the Mountain: Hostaged by the Abu Sayyaf (2002).”
His report for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, “The Making of a Mindanao Mafia,” won third prize in the Jaime V Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism in 2004.
Torres is the former chair of the Photojournalists Center of the Philippines and is a board member at the National Press Club of the Philippines.
The Presidential Task Force on Media Security was formed in 2016 through President Rodrigo Duterte’s first administrative order, which sought to ensure the protection and safety of media workers in the Philippines.
