CHAY F. HOFILEÑA

Follow her on Twitter via @chayhofilena
Email her at: chay.hofilena@rappler.com

Chay is Rappler’s Citizen Journalism/Community Engagement director. Before joining Rappler, she was a contributing writer of Newsbreak Magazine and was one of its founding editors. She has written extensively on media issues and authored the book, "News for Sale: The Corruption and Commercialization of the Philippine Media (2004)," published by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. A philosophy major in college, she was drawn to journalism because it allowed her to write about stories that had the potential to make a difference.

She co-wrote with Miriam Grace Go the top-selling book on the 2010 Philippine presidential elections, "Ambition Destiny Victory: Stories from a Presidential Election (2011)." She has been the recipient of awards from the Jaime V Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

Former director of the Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo, Chay also teaches Media Ethics at the graduate level, News Writing, and Investigative Journalism at the undergraduate level. She obtained her graduate degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism in New York.

In her spare time, Chay goes to the gym to run and lift some weights. When she had more time, she used to regularly attend yoga classes until injuries got in the way. In her next life, she aspires to be a yoga teacher whose only remaining vice is coffee.