Paterno R. Esmaquel Ii Email & Phone Number

I am Paterno R. Esmaquel II, a multimedia journalist specializing in religion and foreign affairs, equipped with 15 years of professional practice, two master’s degrees, and experience in newsroom leadership.I am currently the news editor of Rappler, the Manila-based news website founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa. In this capacity, I supervise our team of national reporters and set our news agenda on a daily basis. Having been with the company for 11 years, I am now also one of Rappler’s longest-serving employees. Before I was promoted to the post of news editor in 2020, I was one of Rappler’s first five multimedia reporters, among the trailblazers of multimedia reporting in the Philippines. As Rappler multimedia reporter from 2012 to 2020, I led Rappler’s coverage of Pope Francis’ trip to the Philippines in 2015, covered international summits, attended workshops and conferences in countries such as the United States, Belgium, Germany, and China, and also produced investigative reports that led lawmakers to oust the Philippines’ foreign minister in 2017. In my first job at broadcast icon Cheche Lazaro’s Probe Productions, I produced TV reports as researcher, field producer, transcriber, writer, and video editor, rolled into one. My experience in the trenches comes with solid academic training. In 2015, I finished a master of arts degree in journalism at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, under a full scholarship and while working as full-time journalist. In 2020, I obtained a master of science degree in Asian Studies, focusing on religions and plural societies, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In my second master’s program, also under a full scholarship, I took courses in Islam and religious violence, Christianity and religious diversity, interreligious dialogue, and Asian religions. I completed my master's with a cumulative grade point average of 4.67 (with 5.0 as the highest).I teach journalism on a part-time basis at the Dominican-run University of Santo Tomas in Manila, a pontifical university founded in 1611, one of the leading Catholic institutions in Asia. One of the courses I teach is religion reporting.I believe that journalism is a calling, and that journalists should develop an expertise to help the public make sense of the world’s complexities. I have chosen to specialize in religion reporting because religion has huge potential to trigger conflict and, to a greater degree, to forge peace. We need to tell more stories about this powerful force that is shaping the world.