Veteran journalist Nonoy Espina dies at 59

Jose Jaime "Nonoy" Espina, a veteran journalist and press freedom advocate, succumbed to liver cancer on Wednesday night, his sister confirmed. He was 59 years old.

Inday Espina-Varona, also a veteran journalist, said her brother was with his family before he passed away peacefully.

"The whole family — wife, Leny Rojo Espina, his children Mayumi Liwayway Rojo Espina and Daki Ojor Espina, his siblings, nieces and nephews and grand nieces and grand nephews — wish to tell relatives and friends, and colleagues, that Nonoy (Jose Jaime Llavore Espina) passed on peacefully, quietly surrounded by family tonight, at 9:20," she said in a Facebook post.

Varona also wrote that Espina survived a severe infection of the coronavirus disease "and was able to return to the bosom of the family."

Espina was the former chairman of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines. He wrote for Today Newspaper and Lifestyle magazine of The Manila Standard.

He was also an editor of online news sites Inquirer.net and Interaksyon.—Consuelo Marquez/LDF,GMA News