Profile :: The Honorable RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO


Rigoberto ("Bobi") Dikit Tiglao was appointed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Presidential Spokesperson with Cabinet rank April 23, 2001. He was appointed concurrent Press Secretary on April 1, 2002. After a six month research fellowship in Kyoto University from May to October 2002, he resumed his role as Presidential Spokesperson concurrent with his new appointment as Presidential Chief of Staff. On December 9, 2002, he assumed the full-time post as Presidential Chief of Staff.

He has a 19-year experience in journalism as a reporter, columnist, and editor in local publications and as correspondent for an international magazine. For his work, he has won four of the most prestigious awards in local and international journalism. He has authored or co-authored six books dealing with Philippine economy and politics.

He was a regular opinion-page columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer from September 2001 until his appointment as Presidential Spokesperson. During the period he was also editor-in-chief and senior vice president of the news website Inq7.net, the news site of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and GMA7 Network Co.


JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE

• Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent, 1989 to 1992. Manila bureau chief from 1993 to March 2000.
  The Far Eastern Economic Review is a prestigious Hong Kong-based international news magazine focusing on Asia owned by Dow Jones & Co, publisher of the Wall Street Journal group of newspapers. As Manila bureau chief, he was the Far Eastern Economic Review’s editorial representative in the Philippines, and the chief correspondent covering developments in the country for the magazine.
  
  Among the many- in-depth articles and scoops during Tiglao’s work at the magazine are: the expose of the bankruptcy of the central bank which helped lead to the new Central Bank Law in 1994; the first-ever coverage in its guerilla base of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front; the Philippine National Bank’s financial distress due to its liabilities to the National Treasury; profiles of Philippine tycoons and conglomerates.
  
  
• Business editor and columnist of the Manila Chronicle from 1986 to 1989. Was with the team that reopened the Manila Chronicle in 1986 (after it was closed by the dictator Marcos in 1972), and made it then the best newspaper in the immediate post-People Power years. Supervised a staff of ten subeditors and reporters, several of whom had gone on to become business editors themselves in today’s newspapers. His column at the business section entitled Critique developed a reputation for its "political economy" approach, or the integration of the disciplines of politics and economics to understand contemporary issues.
  
  
• Started career as journalist in 1981 at the Business Day newspaper. Because it focused on business news, Business Day fell through the cracks of martial-law’s press-suppression policy, and was a much-respected publication during that period. After its closure to labor problems in 1987, it was revived as today’s Business World. Tiglao covered the labor, stockmarket, industry, and financial beats.
  
  
• Conceptualized, and one of the founders of, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Tiglao conceptualized and proposed the establishment of the center based on a research he did while on his Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. The Center has evolved since its founding in 1989 as a respected organization for developing professionalism in journalism, especially for in-depth, investigative reportage. It has published more than a dozen books and publishes the quarterly I magazine.
  
  
• President of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines for the 1997-1998 term. Organized the first FOCAP Conference on the Philippine Economic and Political Prospects, which since then has become an annual event, and the association’s key affair.

AWARDS:

BEST NEWS REPORTER FOR 1983, CATHOLIC MASS MEDIA AWARDS
The award was especially significant in that the CMMA gave it to a business reporter, even as that period’s top news were political, revolving around the assassination of former senator Benigno Aquino and the surge of the anti-dictatorship movement. The CMMA was chaired then by Cardinal Jaime Sin and the board of judges headed by: Teodoro Benigno, then Agence France Presse bureau chief.

The award was given in recognition of Mr. Tiglao’s reportage and exposes in Business Day of cronyism and corruption in the Marcos government, the tampering by the central bank of the country’s balance-of-payments and international-reserve data, and the unraveling of the 1983 debt crisis. He was the first journalist to have obtained and reported on highly-confidential documents of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the then very secretive Central Bank. Mr. Tiglao’s reportage in the 1983-1986 period at a time when the Marcos regime tightly controlled the press, helped galvanize upper- and middle-class support against the dictatorship.

FELLOW, NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 1988-1989
This is one of the most prestigious journalism fellowships in the world. Since its establishment in 1937, only 11 Filipinos so far have been awarded the fellowship.

Fellows is a description of the program given at the foundation’s website,

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu

"Each year, about 24 Fellows --- half from the U.S., the rest from abroad --- come to Harvard to pursue a course of study of their own design. Nearly every class at Harvard College and in the graduate schools is open to the fellows, who spend their 10-month appointment broadening their interests or deepening their insight into their field of specialization. "A Nieman Fellow during the year is given the honorary title of "Harvard University Officer", and receives substantial stipend for living expenses at Cambridge.

TEN OUTSTANDING YOUNG MEN (TOYM) FOR PRINT JOURNALISM, awarded by the Philippine Jaycees, 1991
The other awardee for journalism that year, for the broadcast industry, was broadcaster and now senator Loren Legarda.

MITSUBISHI CORP. FOUNDATION’S ASIA ECONOMIC JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR, 1991
Only two Filipinos so far have received this award. The other recipient is Mr. Raul Locsin, publisher and editor of BusinessWorld. The award involved cash award and an all-expenses two-week stay in Tokyo.


BOOK PUBLICATIONS:

• The Philippine Coconut Industry: Export-Oriented Agricultural Growth. Davao City: ARC Publication, 1984.
• "The Coconut Industry," in Political Economy of Philippine Commodities, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center. 1983.
• "The Consolidation of the Dictatorship", in Javate-de-Dios, Aurora et. al, eds. Dictatorship and Revolution: Roots of People’s Power. Metro Manila: Conspectus Foundation, 1988.
• "Rebellion from the Barracks" in Kudeta: The Challenge to Philippine Democracy. Makati: Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 1990.
• "The Dilemmas of Economic Policymaking in a ‘People-Power’ State," in Timberman, David, ed., The Politics of Economic Reform in Southeast Easia: The Experiences of Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Makati: Asian Institute of Management, 1992.
• "The Conomy: Restoration and Global Incorporation" in Looking Back, Looking Forward: 1996, Manila: Foundation for Worldwide People Power, 1995. (A project of Philippine Daily Inquirer founding chair Eugenia Apostol.)

EDUCATION:
Ateneo de Manila and the University of the Philippines, Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy


PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Birth: August 27, 1952
Widower of Raquel Edralin-Tiglao
Children: Andrea Raquel, Alexandro Kalayaan, and Ben Siddharta.
Married Getsy Selirio April 13, 2002
Political Prisoner, Camp Crame, Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Bonifacio: March 1973 to December 1974.

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