Jan Cuyco: A vibrant soul who 'lived a full life'

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To go or not to go?

That was the question two journalism students had after having their excitement dampened by the news that only one of them would be able to join a fellowship they applied to together. 

The program required participants to fly to Bangkok for a week-long training. But one of the pair did not have a passport. In the Philippines’ problematic passport application system, there was no chance of securing one in time.

To go, or not to go. To be abroad alone, or to stay together at home. 

"There may still be," Jan Cuyco said, "a way to do this together." 

I was fully ready to back out of the fellowship, but Jan had refused and swiftly asked one of the organizers on a call if they would consider a hybrid arrangement so we could participate jointly, even from different countries. She insisted that we find a workaround. 

And we did. Jan and I eventually joined the Southeast Asia fellowship by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) together in 2022. She flew to Bangkok with the rest of the cohort, and I joined the training through a patchwork of Zoom screens and Messenger calls, connected to her each day through WiFi and her unshakable belief that we should share the experience.

Apart from this program, Jan and I wrote countless stories together for nearly four years in college, having been classmates for almost every major journalism class. It was a familiar byline: Chi and Jan, Jan and Chi. 

Jan and I had planned to continue writing stories together despite joining different newsrooms after graduating from college in 2023. 

But those plans will never come to fruition after Jan’s untimely death earlier this week. She passed after a month-long illness early morning of December 8. She was 25. 

Jan is survived by her mother, Jeannette; her father, Chito; and her elder sister, Fatima. She will be laid to rest today, December 13. 

A life at full speed

Jan was known by all to be both academically gifted and physically strong. She graduated top of her class at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication in 2023, the first student from the Department of Journalism to be class valedictorian since 2003.  

She hiked several summits and reached several mountaintops, and in August, completed the much-vaunted Spartan Trifecta race. In photos from marathons, she stood out in bright pink socks and an even brighter smile, made more prominent by dimples and her religiously applied lip tint.

She completed a 25-kilometer run for her 25th birthday on April 25, wearing homemade birthday sashes that playfully read: "Spartan and Strava Gurlie," "Little Miss Defensive," "Klutz-kasera ng Makati" and her familiar catchphrase: "Anong Nangyayare (What's happening)."

To family, friends, and even those who only encountered her through social media or someone else’s stories, Jan appeared almost invincible — healthy, buoyant, and relentless in saying yes to whatever the world placed before her.

She excelled in all possible aspects of life: career, fitness, and relationships. "It's like she was always rushing (Parang palagi siya nagmamadali)," Jeannette Dacanay-Cuyco tells Jan's loved ones here at her wake in Marikina City. "No time was wasted."

Fatima fondly remembers her sister as the most verbose of the family — their spokesperson. She moved through life with an easy grin and a bright laugh, her energy seemingly endless. She chased happiness and constantly took delight in all things. Even during her hospitalization, for a time, Jan was always asking to drink her favorite childhood drink of chocolate milk.

"Jan had the biggest appetite of us all. She ate a lot," Fatima says. "Ayaw niya ng nagugutom (She doesn't like being hungry)."

Jan was always authentic and never hid who she truly was. Kevin John Macabali Portento — Jan's close friend and one of her several running buddies — remembers a funny anecdote from Jan's birthday in April. 

"We found out Jan loved to eat during her last birthday celebration... She said she wasn't hungry. But while we were all trading stories, I suddenly noticed that she had already eaten all of the Tomahawk. Dinaan nya kami sa kwento (She distracted us with her stories)," says Kevin. 

A friend who inspired others

But beyond her talent and boundless enthusiasm for life, Jan is perhaps remembered by most of her loved ones for her ability to bring people together. She was the "glue" that pushed friend groups to meet often. 

"Jan was always intentional. When she'd reach out and ask when to meet next, you know she meant to say you mattered to her," says Dominique Flores, one of Jan's best friends and a Philstar.com reporter.

Often ready to lend a listening ear, Jan was instrumental in helping Dominique hit the ground running as a budding reporter.

"Jan always said to take the leap even when I was afraid," Dominique adds. "'Do it scared,' she'd tell me, and that would make you brave."

Jan, according to her friends from college, never lost her temper. Even when she was visibly frustrated — often by class work or the typical difficulties at school — she was always solution-oriented, never blaming others.  

UP, with its mantra of honor and excellence, found its perfect embodiment in Jan. It is perhaps the first quality — honor — that Karol Ilagan, Jan's professor in several journalism classes, and presently the chair of the journalism department, remembers her for. 

"Jan always stood out... But she also lifted others," Karol says. "She was always humble and kind."

Regina Adolfo, Jan's thesis partner, says that Jan never made being valedictorian or academics her personality. She was "well-rounded" and "lived a full life."

Recalling several days of cramming papers together in their final semesters, close friend and Communications Research graduate Buboy Figueroa says: "Jan often expressed some kind of anxiety over papers... But she'd always get an uno anyway." 

Pride of anti-disinfo advocates

Right after graduating from college, Jan became, for several people, the pride and joy of the industry, especially for those working in the disinformation space. 

Yvonne T. Chua, Jan's thesis adviser and journalism professor in several classes, remembers Jan as a talented journalist who, as a fresh graduate, beat several older reporters for the position of a fact-check journalist with the Manila bureau of the international news organization Agence France-Presse (AFP). 

Charlotte Mason, AFP's former deputy head of digital verification for Asia Pacific, remembers Jan's interview to join the Manila team in July 2023.   

"It took Jan about two minutes to convince us she was the woman for the job! She quickly proved herself as one of the best reporters on the team and made a real impact through her investigative work," Mason says.

"She always had great story ideas. Her copy was fantastic. One of my favourite fact-checks from her was during Manila’s extreme summer last year, when climate deniers spread misleading claims about the 'heat index' being a tool for climate change propaganda," adds Jake Soriano, deputy head of the AFP Asia Pacific fact check team.

Earlier this year, Jan and other members of the AFP Manila team clinched the Gold Standard award at Global Fact 12, the largest global summit dedicated to fact-checking. They won the award for a months-long investigation on a coordinated network spreading disinformation on the South China Sea.

This was a happy but not surprising achievement for Jan. My friendship with her started with a shared desire to become the best journalists we could be, despite the limitations of pandemic virtual classes. 

As sophomores, Jan and I published an in-depth piece on the senior high school voucher program for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism — an output we wrote together for J102 under Prof. Ilagan.

As seniors, we wrote a feature story on families who migrate one after another for J195 (Reporting on Labor Migration) under Prof. Adelle Chua. This was later recognized by the International Labor Organization's global competition on reporting on labor migration.

Jan’s gift for the written word was nurtured and affirmed early on during her high school years at St. Scholastica's Academy of Marikina.

“I first met Jan through an academic paper she submitted for a subject in [senior high school], after I took over for the original teacher. I will never forget my very first comment on her essay ‘Is this your work? It’s very publish-worthy,’” says Michelle Camacho, moderator of the Blue Blazon student publication. 

“From that moment, she stood out to me as the writer par excellence no one can ever outdo. And to this day, she remains the finest writer I have ever taught in my classes,” Camacho adds.

Yet Jan herself was quick to point out that her years as a high school campus journalist were shaped as much by setbacks as by praise.

When I interviewed her during our sophomore year for a profiling activity, she said that a string of competition losses in senior high school had taught her the value of stumbling gracefully.  

“I had to learn the hard way that failures exist not to push us down the rabbit hole, but to prevent us from falling deeper than we think,” she said.  

An achiever with an 'inner child' 

Jan's discipline in sticking judiciously to routines was a skill she learned from her father. Described as a true blue "daddy's girl" by her sister, Jan spent several afternoons being tutored by her father when she was younger. They would often do her schoolwork together, opting to hit the stack of unfinished classwork before she was allowed to play.  

And play she did. For instance, Jan and I were not always busybodies. As pandemic college students, we often played Pokémon Unite together while on a Discord call before we did our actual work, to supposedly "refresh" our minds. 

She played Pikachu and Sylveon, while I often lobbed healing eggs at her as the "support" Blissey. It was the only time I ever saw Jan become a menace, sometimes playfully booing the enemy team even when we were being soundly beaten. There was one New Year's Eve celebration where Jan and I welcomed the new year by playing Pokémon Unite all night long. 

Jan’s childhood friends from St. Scholastica's Academy of Marikina also remember her inventive way of cracking jokes.

“In grade school, (Jan) once called my lunch of tuna caldereta ‘bloody hell,’” Ayannah Abo-abo says. “She was also one of those who dubbed me a ‘crunchy centipede killer’ because I accidentally stepped on a centipede.”

“In short, Jan also likes to poke fun in the most creative way possible,” Ayannah says.

Always self-aware, Jan had once admitted to reverting to her inner child when she is around her loved ones. 

Miguel Fernandez — Jan’s training partner and boyfriend — said his favorite memory of Jan was her expressiveness and zero hesitation in hiding her clumsy moments, especially while hiking.

“During our climb up Mt. Romelo, Jan was slipping down nearly every five minutes,” Miguel says. “Hindi siya nahihiya tumili palagi (She wasn’t shy about constantly shrieking). She knows who she is, and she was happy to be accepted as the resident ‘klutz.’”   

Jan was truly “our clumsy kween,” says Klei Borja, one of her close friends from St. Scholastica’s Academy of Marikina. 

“She once spilled water on someone’s permit slip, then on another friend’s skirt while we were eating lunch, and even on a moving subway train when she was in New York. She once got coconut oil all over her pants because she was trying to transfer it to another container,” Klei adds.

During Jan's second day of work at AFP, Buboy remembers getting a message from Jan about how she had accidentally locked herself out of her work laptop. She did not, at the time, know how to operate a Windows laptop, having grown up on Apple devices.

"She couldn't unlock her laptop and said she was too embarrassed at the time to ask for help. Baka magmukha daw siyang tanga (She thought she would look stupid)," Buboy says. "This was coming from a summa."

In 2022, after a long night of cramming our story for the FNF fellowship, Jan and I finally went to sleep at around 4 a.m., setting an alarm for a morning class in a subject I won’t publicly name here. 

But when morning came, Jan and I decided to sleep it off instead of attending the Zoom class. This was how I knew even the best of us will always, at the end of the day, choose to snooze.

Living lightly 

For all her achievements, Jan chose always to tread the path of lightness. Her family and loved ones remember Jan as be the friend, person, and daughter who constantly looked for the good in everything and everyone.  

“Jan has always brought pride and honor to our entire family and clan,” Jan’s mother Jeannette says on the last evening of her wake. “You make us proud until now.”

The question for Jan was never really to go or not to go, to do or not to do. But: how do I do this? How do we make this happen? 

“If you really want to change the world, start small. Everything doesn't have to be done in grand gestures,” Jan told me in our sophomore year. “Even if you feel there is no impact in what you are doing, know that it's just as beautiful to touch even one life.” 

–-
 

This tribute / obituary was written with the help of Jan Cuyco’s family, friends from St. Scholastica Marikina, UP Diliman, and the AFP team. 

Cristina Chi and Jan Cuyco were journalism students at the UP Diliman College of Mass Communication. Both were interns for Philstar.com in 2022.