[2][3] Torres went to high school in Marikina, Rizal,[2] and was a student activist at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) in the 1950s and the early 1960s.
In 1966, he was hired as a government official under the Marcos administration, a position he held simultaneous to being a Central Committee member of the PKP.
[2][1][4] On March 16, 1968, Torres married UPD psychology student Amaryllis "Amar" Tiglao, who at the time was unaware of his communist affiliation; it was only when they traveled to Russia in the early 1970s to study at the University of Moscow that she found out about his PKP membership upon their chance meeting with communist William J. Pomeroy and his Filipino wife Celia.
During this time, he co-hosted the television program Showbiz at Politika with Lani Mercado on RPN (now RPTV),[7] and was instrumental in brokering a peace accord with the Muslim rebels in Mindanao.
Torres was portrayed by Cesar Montano in the 1997 biographical action film Kadre: Ang Buhay ni Ka Ruben.