Isang Tasang Kape is originally from Bulacan, Philippines. He started out as a freelance cartoonist for the Philippine Star from 2000 to 2003, before becoming an editor. He then worked for two major newspapers (The Manila Times and The Daily Tribune) as a news reporter while also producing cartoons for smaller publications. Later, he transferred to ABS-CBN Corp, which was once the leading broadcasting company in the Philippines, as a journalist. In 2018, he began contributing editorial cartoons to ABS-CBN News Digital. This collaboration lasted until early 2020, when President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration threatened to shut down the company’s broadcasting service because of reports that were ‘unfavourable’ to him. The editors decided to stop using Isang’s cartoons as a precautionary measure, but the Duterte administration decided to shut down the channel anyway. Since then, he has been drawing on social media under a pseudonym to criticise fake news and censorship in his country.
