PHILIPPINE Daily Inquirer sports editor and UST alumnus Francis Ochoa has been elected the new president of the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA).
Ochoa, a former Varsitarian features editor who studied journalism in UST, will serve a two-year term as PSA president. He succeeded The Philippine Star sports editor Nelson Beltran.
He and other newly elected officers were inducted on March 18.
“A lot of great leaders have put in fantastic work to make the PSA great. The last administration, in fact, took the PSA to such great heights,” Ochoa told the Varsitarian. “I want to be able to build on that.”
As new PSA president, Ochoa said he plans to widen the PSA’s reach and elevate its relevance to the public.
“Our new set of officers and board members are also looking to expand the PSA’s reach by swearing in sportswriters from the provinces as affiliate members,” he said.
“I also hope to build a stronger bond with the athletes we cover to make sure that the PSA becomes a safe space for them to tell their stories.”
Ochoa has been a regular speaker at the Varsitarian’s Inkblots, an annual campus journalism fellowship attended by student writers around the country, where he lectures on sports writing.
He has covered the Olympics, Manny Pacquiao fights, the Asian Games, and other international sports events.
In 2013, he won the best special feature for “3 Triathletes rise above pain, obstacles, disability” in the 35th Catholic Mass Media Awards.
Established in 1948, the PSA is the country’s oldest media organization for sports writers and editors from various media outlets around the country. Joaquin E. Cortez with reports from Rafael Paolo P. Salaya
