Inday Espina-Varona started her career as a reporter at the Visayan Times, a local newspaper from
Bacolod. As associate editor and investigative news chief at the
Manila Times, she directed a numerous projects that won awards, including a series about Filipino children who suffered from
tuberculosis and the telecommunications firms who ignored a consumer's problems; battered women, prostituted children and the fall of the Moro Islamic Liberation Fronts. She won the country's
top prize for investigative journalism (2006) . She was selected in 2005 as an international fellow of the John S Knight Professional Journalism Fellowships in Stanford University. Inday won the Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) Prize for Independence at the 2018 Press Freedom Awards. RSF’s Prize for Independence is awarded to reporters for resisting pressure in carrying out their work. In the Philippines, she has won awards for her coverage of indigenous peoples and the LGBTQ+ community. ==Personal life==