Jon Perez started writing in college when he joined the official weekly student newspaper of the University of the East in Manila, Philippines, during the early 1990s. From there, after college, he worked his way up from being a correspondent to a desk editor in various media outlets — publishing, broadcasting, and online. His last employment, before moving to Saskatchewan with his family in 2019, was with the Saipan Tribune in the U.S. territory of the CNMI. He was assigned to cover sports events, the CNMI legislature and local politics, federal immigration and labour issues, departments under the CNMI Governor’s Office, and other U.S. federal agencies.