About

Jose ‘Joe’ Adrias Torres Jr. is a Filipino journalist based in Bangkok, Thailand, and 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 the Abu Sayyaf (2002).

Joe was conferred the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Fellowships for Professional Development by the Benigno Aquino Foundation and the US Embassy in Manila in 2005. He was a fellow at the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993.

Joe started as a writer of the alternative news service Philippine News and Features, which gave him the opportunity to bring to light for the first time in the early 1990s the bandit Abu Sayyaf Group.

He later worked as sub-editor for Saudi Gazette, the national paper of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He came back to Manila in 1997 and worked as investigative reporter of the defunct Isyu newsmagazine. He later joined The Manila Times, The Philippine Post, and The Sunday Paper.

He started his practice in online journalism when he joined abs-cbnNEWS.com in 2001. Four years later in 2005, he joined GMA New Media Inc., a subsidiary of GMA Broadcasting Network, and helped set up GMANews.TV.

In 2009, Joe revived the tabloid Remate Tonight and set up remate.ph, a news website.

In 2010 he was hired as deputy editor of the Bangkok-based Union of Catholic Asian News while serving as online editor of CathNews Philippines. He is currently seconded as managing editor of UCA News’ main editorial office in Bangkok.

Among Joe’s awards are a citation in the 2004 International Tolerance Prize for his article on Filipino Muslim converts titled Troubled Return of the Faithful. Another article, The Making of a Mindanao Mafia, was awarded 3rd Prize in the Jaime V Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism, Explanatory Category, in 2004.

Joe was chairman of the National Union of Journalist of the Philippines from 2006 to 2008. He sits as a member of the board of the Philippine Center for Photojournalism.

He lectures on writing for photojournalists at the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism At the Ateneo de Manila University where he is also currently enrolled for a diploma on multimedia journalism.