FOR THEIR 1976 staff photo, members of The Flame, both tenured and newly recruited, huddled together in front of the Santisimo Rosario Parish to fit within the lens of the camera.
The sun gleamed in the cloudless sky, watching over the spirited staffers. Ruben Nepales, then a junior in Communication Arts, searched through the crowd of faces. His uniform was loose on his slender body.
Within the crowd stood Janet Rodriguez, a Journalism freshman and a new staffer. Her lips curled into the smile that charmed those who met her, especially Ruben, who found himself enchanted by her presence.
At the sight of Janet, Ruben mustered courage, decided to seize the opportunity and brushed past his fellow staffers to make his way towards her.
“She didn’t like me at all, because I was thin. I looked geeky, nerdy. She got really turned off,” Ruben told The Flame with a hearty laugh.
“I was a promdi (from the province), and she was a Manila girl.”
The staff photo captured him settling right beside her. His hand gently placed on her shoulder.
More than four decades later, they made a name for themselves in the Hollywood journalism scene as Golden Globes voters and as board members in several film festivals. Among these are the SoHo Film Festival and Asian International Film Festival. Some events have them flying to Cannes, Toronto, Venice and even to the Philippines through its very own Cinemalaya.
Ruben writes for his column “Only in Hollywood,” which debuted in 2005 for the Philippine Daily Inquirer broadsheet before moving to Rappler in 2020. It had recently found a new home in Inquirer.net USA in December last year.
Janet, a Hollywood correspondent for GMA News, pens a weekly column “Hollywood Insider” which has been running since 2006.
Decades after their undergraduate studies, Ruben and Janet celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in August 2025. They continue to exchange love and entertainment stories in their California home.
Where it all began
Ruben had always been interested in writing. In fifth grade, he remembers creating what he called “news stories” in his notebook and forcing his classmates to read them. Books, newspapers and magazines fueled this passion, while films in cultural centers and screenings formed his interest in the arts.
His ambitions led him to the Faculty of Arts and Letters in 1973, and his interest burgeoned during his junior year of college upon joining The Flame in 1976.
Like any promdi who opted to study in the city, Ruben experienced drastic change when he moved to Manila.
As he traversed the bustling streets, the Pangasinan native wondered whether he could keep up with the pace of his new life.
When it comes to Janet, her love for journalism morphed into her first byline in MOD Magazine, a local women’s magazine, when she was 19 years old. She entered the University in 1975.
Blockmates would recognize her name from the magazines they read or from her work through her organizations. They often mistook her for a legitimate reporter or an older classmate. An article she wrote called “The medicinal uses of urine” even gained popularity during her time at MOD Magazine.
“I’m putting myself out there already, even at a young age,” Janet said.
From 1976 to 1979, Janet harnessed her writing skills as a Thomasian campus journalist, working concurrently as editor-in-chief of The Flame and managing editor of The Varsitarian.
With Ruben being an upperclassman, their time together in The Flame only overlapped for two years. Janet strictly kept things professional back then. Her focus zeroed in on leading writers and artists in pursuing stories they were passionate about, “as long as they meet the deadlines.”
But Ruben wanted them to meet elsewhere.
“You have this big responsibility being editor-in-chief,” Janet said.
“I was assigning articles, and he was writing for us.”
Ruben had felt otherwise. Between writing outputs, he took every opportunity to see her but was “too shy” to even approach or talk to her.
When asked what originally drew him to Janet, “Her personality [and] regardless-ness,” Ruben said.
“She was always smiling — that I really felt it.”
Beyond the walls of the Artlets publication, he saw glimpses of Janet outside of their professional setting. They both lived in Quezon City, they rode the same buses. He knew Janet to be her grandmother’s favorite, as he would occasionally catch sight of them while waiting for the bus going home.
“She and her lola had dates sometimes after school, and they would have halo-halo at the Little Quiapo in front of UST… I saw how sweet they were, and I saw how pretty Janet was,” Ruben said.
But that was merely what Ruben and Janet shared in college: assigned articles, chance meetings and longing glances.
Ruben graduated from the University in 1977. Later, Janet would follow in 1979.
A workplace romance
After graduation, the two set off in different directions in the Philippine media industry.
Janet established herself as a reporter in The Times Journal and as a correspondent for its Sunday magazine centered on entertainment, Parade Magazine.
Ruben worked as a public relations (PR) manager at Warner-Elektra-Atlantic or WEA, an in-house distribution company and record label, which, at the time, was handling artists like Led Zeppelin and Madonna.
It was only a year after Janet’s graduation when the pair’s sudden reunion unfolded. Crossing paths was not something they anticipated, following their exit from the University gates.
“The flame started, I mean, our relationship started really after The Flame,” Janet said in jest.
In 1980, American singer Paul Williams visited the country for a press conference. Tables were lined up with live microphones all over. The production staff were all busy bees rushing around, and Ruben was the host for the event.
As PR manager, he also frequented media outlets for press conferences. Walking through the doors of The Times Journal, he was surprised to find Janet there.
Hours into the press conference, they found themselves engaging in conversation and exchanging quips. A familiarity lingered and an interest grew — both unraveling how much the other had grown since the last time they met.
“It was just two people excited to see each other again,” Ruben recalled.
Three years after leaving UST, Ruben knew he was a different person from before. Working helped him save money to elevate his fashion, and since then, he gained a little bit more weight, finally growing into his skin and his age.
With a newfound confidence, he began inviting Janet right then and there to events related to her job as an entertainment writer.
“If only some people would stop flirting,” Paul Williams himself said, his voice echoing throughout the conference room.
“We forgot that the microphones were live because it was a press conference,” Janet said.
“So all our flirting was heard by everybody.”
After the conference, Ruben’s invitations became recurrent.
“He used to invite me to concerts,” Janet shared.
“It was also work for me, because I was sometimes assigned to write about it.”
Each concert came with more expensive tickets and front-row seats — Ruben’s successful attempts to impress Janet. Growing steadily between pseudo-dates within joint projects and the proximity of work, their companionship developed into something deeper.
In 1980, they made it official. Two years into dating, the pair knew that the other was “the one.”
Janet had watched the way Ruben’s kindness extended to children and the strangers he met. Ruben’s longstanding admiration for her never faded over the years but only blossomed even more.
They eventually murmured about getting married.
But the next step in their relationship instead came in the form of immigration papers and tearful goodbyes at the airport.
In 1985, Ruben’s mother pushed him to migrate to the United States of America alongside the rest of their family. With the wedding postponed, the life he had been building for the past twenty-seven years crumbled to the ground of American soil.
Reunited
Janet was finding her own way back to Ruben — even if it meant crossing the seas.
Resourceful as she was, she managed to acquire a journalism visa within just a month. After spending her last weeks in the country with family, she booked a one-way flight to the U.S.
“I followed Ruben for love,” Janet said.
“Our relationship became much stronger once we were together in the US.”
Finally, the pair had their long-awaited wedding. Ruben, donning a dark blue suit, had Janet in sparkling white right beside him — their heads pressed under an arch of roses.
Being in a new country signalled a fresh start, but, as the couple came to quickly learn, the “American dream” does not automatically start the moment the plane lands.
It was the 1980s: a time before Downtown Los Angeles had its high-rise condominiums and looming apartments. Their home, shared with Ruben’s five family members, was a cramped flat with graffiti-stained walls and cockroaches lurking in the corners. Ruben remembered having to swat the bugs away to make the space presentable.
Work, as he recalled, was not easy to come by. The couple moved between accepting odd jobs and being trampled by the weight of offices rejecting their applications.
Ruben, for instance, worked positions such as a legal document analyst — which he joked was a “fancy term for a minimum wage clerk” — and then a proofreader. He knew that he should be writing instead, but reality was that, as a new immigrant, he had to start somewhere.
Janet worked in Sunset Magazine as a secretary before becoming a marketing coordinator.
“It [was] really humbling. We had careers in the Philippines, and to start all over again at age 27 or 26, nobody knows you. You don’t have any friends there, and you don’t know where to start, because nobody wants to give you a break,” she said.
During one of her experiences, an assignment included having to edit another’s work. As an immigrant, Janet’s edits were not taken seriously by her American co-worker.
“They think that since I’m an immigrant, I don’t know English. I’m not supposed to edit their work,” she recalled.
“Many immigrants experience racial discrimination, whether overt or covert,” Ruben said.
A 1985 article from The New York Times titled “Violent Incidents Against Asian-Americans Seen as Part of Racist Pattern,” detailed instances such as physical assaults, anti-Asian graffiti and media stereotyping that had happened against Asian-Americans and immigrants around the time.
Yet the two did not waver. They faced the discrimination “headstrong” and worked to show that they were more than qualified for the roles they took on.
“People will bring you down and tell you things that you cannot do, but you have to prove to these people that you can,” Janet said.
Each challenge fortified them rather than destroyed them. According to Ruben, the arrival of their two children, born in 1989 and 1991, further amplified their motivation to rise above their difficulties.
“The struggles just made our relationship stronger,” Janet shared.
“Our understanding of each other became much more solid.”
A way back home
Years later, when their eldest child reached high school, Ruben and Janet found themselves fully returning to journalism.
Their former editors who were stationed in Manila reached out to them, asking if they could cover Hollywood news for their outlets. The couple agreed to the job. Janet took her love for talking to people, and Ruben kept hold of his love for film, leading them to interview Hollywood stars.
Janet ended up writing news for numerous Philippine outlets and found a home within GMA-7. Her weekly column “Hollywood Insider” was born, enabling her to update her fellow Filipinos about the ins and outs of Tinseltown.
Ruben, wrote for Filipino-American publications and came up with his own column, now known as “Only In Hollywood.”
Ruben took it a step further and attempted to get into the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) — now known as the Golden Globes — as a voter. He toiled to meet the HFPA’s requirements: sample articles, sponsorship and a vote from the general membership.
Still largely unknown at the time, he seized every opportunity to network during Hollywood roundtable interviews and gradually build credibility among his peers. By 2004 and after three attempts, he was finally voted in. Janet would later join him in 2008.
As immigrants in their current positions, they use their platform to advocate for greater visibility of Filipino talent in Hollywood.
“It’s gratifying and fulfilling to write about Filipino talents conquering the world stage or to cover Hollywood from the perspective of an outsider with a fresh eye for Philippine outlets,” Ruben said.
In 2012, he released a book called “My Filipino Connection: The Philippines in Hollywood,” which featured numerous interviews starring actors, artists and celebrities of Filipino heritage working in Hollywood.
Two years later, Janet would contribute to a leadership book series titled “DISRUPT: Filipina Women: Proud. Loud. Leading Without A Doubt.” By 2022, she released a coffee table book called “FASHION. Filipino. Hollywood. The World.” The 200-page book consisted of photo spreads that celebrated fashion on the red carpet, either worn or made by Filipinos.
“We want to continue writing because we want to keep pushing for Filipino cinema. That’s what keeps us going,” Ruben said.
From AB stories to Hollywood celebrities
“I still remember that staff photo,” Ruben said, referring to the one The Flame staff took in ‘76.
He was smiling at Janet.
“It may be too corny to say, but it seemed like only yesterday,” he added.
From young journalists in Dapitan, the couple have become familiar faces in the Hollywood journalism community. Their efforts to survive and thrive in the land of the Walk of Fame have paid off.
On December 7, 2025, their respective columns were commended during the Los Angeles Press Club’s 18th Annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.
Janet’s article “Elias J: From rubber tree tapping to performing on the global stage” was among the finalists in the “Entertainment Blog by an Individual or Group Tied to an Organization” category.
Ruben was a multi-finalist that night. Among the nominations, he won first place for his Celebrity News, Online piece, “At 62, Demi Moore finally feels ‘liberated’ from her own self.” Another first prize was awarded to his Celebrity Feature, Online piece, “Colin Farrell opens up to his son’s Angelman syndrome, starts a foundation.”
When asked about their plans, they answered that they would carry on doing “what they love to do” — travelling and visiting film festivals in different countries.
“We love traveling, and we will continue to do that because it broadens your horizons and lets you see how the world is,” Janet said.
“I feel like a citizen of the world.”
Sometimes, the couple is asked whether they ever tire of each other’s constant company, as they are almost always seen together. They only smile and insist that they never do.
For the couple, what began as a strictly professional connection — colleagues limited to passing glances — has grown into fruitful careers on top of a lifetime of partnership and perseverance.
Hand in hand, Ruben and Janet continue to face whatever is thrown at them. Together.
“More than anything else, we’re friends. We get along very well,” Ruben explained.
“Ruben brings out the best in me, and hopefully I bring out the best in him,” Janet said. F
