|
Janet Susan Rodriguez-Nepales was the valedictorian of Class 1975 and came from section Diamond.
After graduation, Janet attended the University of Santo Tomas, and graduated cum laude honors with a degree in Bachelor of Arts
in Journalism. At UST, she was the editor-in-chief of the university paper, The Varsitarian, and the College of Arts and Letters’
monthly magazine, The Flame. Janet also has a Master’s degree at the Asian Institute of Journalism (AIJ). Immediately
upon graduation, she worked at one of the leading newspapers in the Philippines, The Times Journal.
In 1985, Janet immigrated
to the U.S., where she married writer and fellow Thomasian and Artlets graduate Ruben Nepales. In Los Angeles, Janet first
worked for Sunset Magazine for a year. During this time, she also co-edited Manila Extra, a monthly entertainment magazine, with
her husband.
At present, Janet
writes for StarStudio, a popular magazine in the Philippines (which is also distributed to overseas Filipino communities);
the Philippine News, where she writes an entertainment column, "Dateline: Hollywood"; and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. She
is also the Los Angeles correspondent of GMA-7, one of the top television networks in the Philippines. Janet appears occasionally
on Channel 18’s only Filipino television talk show,
"Kababayan LA."
As a Hollywood writer, Janet has interviewed Hollywood celebrities like Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts,
George Clooney, Kirsten Dunst, Tobey Maguire, Drew Barrymore, just to name a few. She has also covered the Golden Globes Awards,
the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Toronto Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Venice Film Festival among
many others. As a journalist, Janet has received a number of awards: first place winner in a Photojournalism Contest sponsored
by the AIJ, "Journalist of the Year" award in 2005 from
Celebrity Chronicle, and Asian PR Wire’s "Journalist
of the Month" in December 2007.
Janet
is featured in Carina Monica Montoya’s 2008 book, "Images of America: Filipinos in Hollywood," as one of the members
of the "New Generation" of Filipinos creating a name for themselves in Hollywood.
Last year, Janet received the QCHS Alumni Association’s "Outstanding Alumna Award in Multi-Media Journalism" during
the school’s annual reunion. The school also recently established the "Janet Susan Rodriguez-Nepales Journalism Scholarship
Award" to be given annually to an outstanding journalism student-writer (or group of writers) of the school paper, The
Capitol, where Janet was the editor-in-chief then, and/or Ang Parola.
Janet lives in Los Angeles, California, with husband Ruben Nepales, who is the first Filipino journalist member of the
Hollywood Foreign Press Association that gives out the Golden Globes awards. They have two daughters --- Bianca Nicole, 18,
a freshman Pre-Med scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and Rafaella Angelica, 17, a junior scholar at Flintridge
Sacred Heart Academy high school at La Canada Flintridge.
|
