Columnist since 1994 and with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country’s leading newspaper, since 2004, he is also a historian, curator, and broadcast journalist as well as a former editorial writer, editor, and journalism professor. He served two administrations, most notably as chief speech writer and Political Communications Secretary for President Benigno S. Aquino III from 2010-2016. He is a Fellow of the Social Weather Stations, a social research institution in the Philippines. He has been published widely in the Philippines and elsewhere, including Foreign Affairs, The Democracy Post of the Washington Post, and The Asia Sentinel, as well as having had a column in The Arab News newspaper. He is also Executive Director of the Museo del Galleon, the Philippines’ forthcoming landmark museum on the four centuries long Manila-Acapulco galleon trade.