Mara Cepeda from the Phillippines was a Fellow in the 2021 Reham Al-Farra (RAF) Memorial Journalism virtual programme. Mara is the Philippines Correspondent of Singapore’s The Straits Times (ST), one of Southeast Asia's leading English broadsheets. She joined ST in 2022 after working for seven years as a political reporter for Rappler, whose CEO, Maria Ressa, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. Mara is among 17 reporters chosen for the 2021 Asia Journalism Fellowship of the Singapore-based Temasek Foundation and the Institute of Policy Studies of the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She specializes in stories on politics, defense, diplomacy and women's rights.