President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has appointed Jose Torres Jr. as the new head of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS), according to Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Acting Secretary Cesar Chavez.

Torres replaced Paul Gutierrez as task force chief after Gutierrez's term expired in September.

The PTFoMS was formed in 2016 by former President Rodrigo Duterte with a mandate to protect the life, liberty, and security of media workers.

Before his appointment, Torres served as director general of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA). Before his stint in government, he worked as a journalist for various agencies in the Philippines and abroad, and he covered Pope Francis on his trips across Asia.

According to Marcos, the appointment of Torres is intended to safeguard the lives of media personnel and practitioners.

He also directed the PTFoMS and the Justice Department to intensify their operations in preparation for next year’s elections.

“I asked the PTFOMS to focus their efforts on the members of the local media, whose fearless coverage makes them particularly vulnerable to threats against life, liberty, and security,” he said.

Marcos emphasized the need to pay attention to areas with small constituencies, which are prone to becoming “personal.”

“It is also an action from our experience that the smaller the constituency that is being fought over by different political candidates, the more heated that debate becomes. It becomes personal at that level. And that is where we have to protect our people and our journalists,” he noted.

Marcos also ordered the PTFoMS to strengthen partnerships with media organizations, including the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), the National Press Club (NPC), the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), and other concerned groups.

Earlier, he urged the media industry to help the country achieve clean, honest, transparent, and accountable midterm polls in 2025.