Juan Antonio Borrego Díaz

Bachelor's degree in Journalism. Director of the newspaper Escambray. He was a Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power for the municipality of Taguasco, province of Sancti Spíritus, ratified on April 18, 2018 for the IX Legislature.

That morning in the living room he had announced it resolutely: "I'm going to study Journalism". And he himself didn't know where that sudden calling had come from. Perhaps it had been growing since, riding on his father's horse during stormy days, he traveled that path filled with bushes, oxen... to get to the Manuel Ascunce Domenech — the primary school he entered before he was old enough due to that premature desire to learn — or since Teacher Felito had sharpened his wit with so many teachings or since Professor Martell had enchanted him with those History classes.

Perhaps as much as flying around on the rickety bicycle going back and forth through those trails, he was passionate about reading newspapers and always staying informed. But the truth is that suddenly he had changed his plans to study in the Soviet Union to sit in a classroom at the University of Oriente.

He began his work activity as a reporter for Radio Sancti Spíritus from 1988 to 1990, when he moved to the newspaper Escambray, where he first served as editor and later as a reporter.

He came to the newspaper through the enthusiasm of his friend-brother Enrique Ojito, in 1990, after working two years at Radio Sancti Spíritus. He started as a Copy Assistant in those days of insomnia facing the frenzy of daily journalism and when the pages were assembled with the enormous lead letters that were squeezed or stretched as needed. "The letters are gone!", was a very typical phrase that was heard — he now reveals without knowing that the cell phone is recording what appears to be an informal dialogue —. I learned a lot during that time, also with Larralde, who was an excellent editor".

From that date on he combined the work of editor with reporting, so much so that since 1992 he became, out of pure altruism, a correspondent for Granma and even when he moved from subdirector to director he never stopped writing a single day. Without thinking about it, he assumed in November 1997 the reins of a newspaper that was already a weekly and that would become the image and likeness of its readers.

He was appointed subdirector and in 1997 director. Since 1992 he has been a correspondent for the newspaper Granma. He was President of the UPEC in the province. National Vanguard. Under his guidance Escambray was crowned at the National Written Press Festivals, transcended from province to province and won over a staff — as he likes to say — of eminent journalists and collaborators, many of whom remain still.

Between 2007 and 2008 he was a special correspondent for the newspaper Granma to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He was also an enthusiastic collaborator of Cubadebate and promoter of the editorial alliance between Escambray and Cubadebate.

He was a Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power, ratified on April 18, 2018 in the Constitutive Session of the IX Legislature, held at the Palace of Conventions in Havana.

He passed away on October 4, 2021, from complications associated with COVID-19.