Gel Santos Relos has been one of the most respected and multi-awarded broadcast journalists in the Philippines, anchoring and hosting top-rating radio and television programs like “Tatak Pilipino”,“Hoy!Gising”,“Companero y Companera”,“Pulso, Aksyon Balita”, “Headlines”, “TV Patrol”, “Relos Reports”(DZMM), and “Dear Ate Gel”(DZMM) in the span of her 21 years of partnership with ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation. Prior to her successful work in media, Gel was an Instructor in Broadcast Communication at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication, where she graduated cum laude and pursued post-graduate courses.

She was granted Permanent Resident status in the United States as an “Alien with Extra-Ordinary Ability”, and this is where she has been based with her family since 2001. As her husband was doing surgical residency, Gel has experienced how it was like to live from coast-to-coast in America—from Pennsylvania to New Jersey to Minnesota, and finally to California, where Gel and her family are now happily settled in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Their move to California gave Gel the opportunity to renew her ties with ABS-CBN. Since 2007, Gel has been the anchor of The Filipino Channel’s “Balitang America”, the first daily television newscast about events and issues that matter to Filipinos in North America. Gel also co-hosted the most popular immigration show “Citizen Pinoy” with Atty. Michael Gurfinkel from 2005-2009. Since February of 2010, Gel has also been writing her own column for Asian Journal–“The Fil-Am Perspective”, which is also the title of this blog that was launched on February 8, 2010 through the article “The Confessions of a Filipino-American”.

In 2009, Gel Santos Relos received the honor of being one of the “100 Most Influential Filipina Women in America” from the Filipina Women’s Network. This distinction sealed Gel’s commitment to serve the Filipinos, especially the Filipino-American community, through her work as a communicator using various media—television, radio, print, the fast-emerging social networking sites, and through direct person-to-person interaction with her kababayans.

Gel is fired up and ready to go and continue with her mission to help the Filipinos navigate their new life in America, while keeping and strengthening their ties to the Philippines . She hopes this will ultimately motivate the Filipinos in America to reach out, have a voice, and become more engaged citizens in the United States and the bigger global community….to read more