Jose A. Torres Jr., the newly appointed Director-General of the Philippine Information Agency(PIA), is set to take his oath before Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cheloy Velicaria-Garafil on Monday, May 29 at the PIA Auditorium in Visayas Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City.
A simultaneous Flag Raising Ceremony of all the PIA offices across the country and a ceremonial turnover of the PIA Flag will be held. Representatives from the PCO attached agencies as well as various media outfits are expected to witness the event.
The new PIA chief was appointed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on May 19 to lead the premier development communication agency of the country taking pride in disseminating information about government programs, projects, and services to the Filipino people.
He will lead the widest government information network in the country that can reach the grassroots—spanning 16 regional offices and 78 provincial information centers.
Before joining the public service, he began his career as a writer for the alternative news service Philippine News and Features in the late 1980s.
He also worked for both local and international media outlets including ABS-CBN, GMA News Media, and the Union of Catholic Asian News. In 2009, he revived the tabloid Remate Tonight and set up the news website remate.ph. Later on, he joined LiCAS.news as Editor-at-Large in March 2020.
Newly appointed Torres is a two-time recipient of the Philippines’ National Book Award for Journalism for his books Unholy Nation: Stories from a Gambling Republic (2004) and Into the Mountain: Hostaged by Abu Sayyaf (2002).
He has a citation in the 2004 International Tolerance Prize for his article on Filipino Muslim converts entitled Troubled Return of the Faithful. His article, The Making of a Mindanao Mafia was also awarded 3rd Prize in the Jaime V Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism, Explanatory Category, in 2004.
The new director-general also served as the chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines from 2006 to 2008. He was also the chairman of the Philippine Center for Photojournalism until 2016 and currently sits as a board member of the National Press Club of the Philippines. (KSAA – PIA CPSD)
