THREE THOMASIAN journalists, two of them alumni of The Flame, were elected to top posts in a professional organization of media practitioners representing international news entities.
Artlets alumni Karen Lema, Aaron Favila and Aie Balagtas See were elected as officers of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) for the term 2025-2026, the group announced in a Facebook post on June 20.
Lema, the bureau chief of Reuters Philippines and a former staffer of The Flame, was elected president of FOCAP.
She graduated from the Communication Arts Program in 1999 and earned her Master’s degree in Journalism from Ateneo de Manila University in 2007.
Lema worked as a senior correspondent for Businessworld for six years before becoming a correspondent of Reuters news agency from 2006 to 2018. She then served as the deputy bureau chief of Reuters Philippines for two years before becoming its bureau chief beginning 2020.
Meanwhile, Associated Press photojournalist Favila, a former photographer of The Flame, was elected to the organization’s board of trustees, along with four other journalists from various agencies.
He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Journalism from UST in 1996 before working as a photojournalist for the Associated Press. He has been working for the wire agency for nearly three decades.
Throughout the years, Favila has won several awards in the creative industry, including the Ani ng Dangal Award for Visual Arts at the National Commission for Culture and Arts in 2014.
See, a Philippines correspondent for the New York Times, was also named FOCAP secretary.
See, a former reporter for GMA News Online and The Philippine Star earned her bachelor’s degree from the UST Journalism program in 2008.
As a freelance journalist, she has been published by both local and foreign news outlets, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.
Established in 1974 during the Martial Law era, FOCAP aims to achieve a “harmonious relationship” between the Philippine government and foreign journalists working in the country. F
