Alec Corpuz
DVJ Program Coordinator
Alec is a seasoned photojournalist and photo editor at news.abs-cbn.com, boasting a decade-long career in the field. Before transitioning in his current role, he previously worked as a photojournalist for two major broadsheets. Additionally, he has served as a college lecturer for nearly a decade teaching various journalism subjects, sharing his expertise and passion with aspiring journalists. Currently he is a photojournalism instructor at the University of Santo Tomas.
With academic credentials from the Asian Center for Journalism, where he earned a Diploma in Photojournalism, and a Master of Arts in Journalism degree from Ateneo de Manila both as a Konrad Adenauer Stiftung fellow, he has a strong foundation in the craft. Alec’s dedication to enhancing his visual literacy and his openness to diverse viewpoints underscores his commitment to the power of images in storytelling.
Booma B. Cruz
Lecturer
Booma B. Cruz, founding trustee and treasurer of VERA Files, teaches video production and investigative journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University. She was head of Probe Productions Inc. and Unlimited Productions Inc., which produced award-winning investigative newsmagazine and documentaries on television. Prior to joining television, she worked in several newspapers as a reporter and later editor. A business economics graduate of the University of the Philippines, Cruz holds a master’s degree in journalism from the Ateneo de Manila University.
Paterno R. Esmaquel II
Lecturer
Paterno R. Esmaquel II obtained his undergraduate degree in Communication and master’s degree in Journalism from the Ateneo de Manila University. He also has a master of science degree in Asian Studies, focusing on the comparative study of religions in plural societies, from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Paterno began his journalism career as a production assistant at Probe Productions, the Philippines’ first investigative news magazine on television. He then worked as a news producer for GMA News Online. He joined Rappler in 2012 as one of its first reporters and is currently its news editor.
Pratibha (Prateebha) Tuladhar
Lecturer
Pratibha/Prateebha Tuladhar is a journalist, educator and communication worker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She has worked as a development communicator in Kathmandu, Yangon and Chiang Mai. She has been teaching writing to photo journalists at the Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, for the last 12 years. She also teaches journalism at the Communications University of Zhejiang, China for the University of Bolton. She is writes for Nepali Times. In the past, she has written for German Press Agency-dpa, for The Kathmandu Post and produced short videos for BBC Media Action, National Geographic and The China Daily. Her works also appear in the Nepal Earthquake anthology and the Harvest Moon, Poems and Stories from the Edge of the Climate Crisis.
Vicente Jaime R. Villafranca
Lecturer
Vicente Jaime R. Villafranca, better known as Veejay Villafranca, started his career as a staff photojournalist for the Philippines Graphic, a new national news magazine, before working as a freelance photojournalist with several international news wire agencies, including Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Thomson-Reuters, and, later on, Getty Images and Bloomberg News. He subsequently became a full-time documentary photographer, capturing topics such as on the evolving Filipino cultural landscape, the effects of displacement on local communities, and the underbelly of gangs and secret societies in the Philippines. He is the recipient of the 2008 Ian Parry Scholarship grant that featured his project on former gang members in Manila.
In 2017, together with MAPA Books, he co-published his first photobook, SIGNOS. Villafranca has exhibited in galleries and museums across France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Japan, the United States, and Singapore.
Veejay is also a visual culture and documentary photography lecturer at the Asian Center for Journalism and at the Bachelors in Photography Program at the College of St Benilde.
