Rigoberto "Bobi" Dikit Tiglao (born August 27, 1952) is a Filipino activist and opinion columnist.
Rigoberto Tiglao
| |
|---|---|
| Presidential Spokesperson | |
| In office April 23, 2001[1] – 2002 | |
| President | Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo |
| Preceded by | Renato Corona |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1952-08-27) August 27, 1952 (age 71)[2] |
| Spouse(s) |
Raquel Edralin (died 2001)Gethsemane Selirio (m. 2002) |
| Children | 3 (with Edralin) |
| Occupation | Columnist |
| |
He was previously editor-in-chief of Inq7.net, a website jointly owned by the Philippine Daily Inquirer and GMA Network before resigning his post to serve as Presidential Spokesperson and Chief of Staff (and later ambassador to Cyprus and Greece) during the administration of former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. He now works as an opinion columnist for the Manila Times.
A number of his claims have been fact-checked by multiple organizations.[3][4][5][6]
Tiglao was an activist during the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos.[7][8] Tiglao was head of the Manila-Rizal chapter of the Communist Party of the Philippines.[8][9] Tiglao was eventually caught along with his wife Raquel, and detained by Marcos' military forces, first at the 5th Constabulary Security Unit in Camp Crame and then at the Ipil Detention Center in Fort Bonifacio.[10] He and his wife remained in detention for two years and were then let out on house arrest.[11]
He later became a reporter for Business Day from 1981 to 1986. He then served as business editor and columnist at the Manila Chronicle from 1986 to 1989.[12] His chapter on "The Consolidation of Dictatorship" in the 1988 book "Dictatorship and Revolution: Roots of People's Power"[13] is cited as one of the accounts of precisely how Ferdinand Marcos consolidated power during the early years of his presidency.[citation needed]
In 1989, Tiglao was one of 9 journalists who founded the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), an independent nonprofit media agency specializing in investigative reporting.[14] He was the one who first proposed the creation of the PCIJ, writing a paper on this during his fellowship in 1988 at the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and getting the idea after visiting the Center for Investigative Reporting in California.[15] and he served as the PCIJ's treasurer in its earliest days, when it operated out of the PhP 1,000 chipped in by each of the founding members, and initial grants from The Asia Foundation and the Ford Foundation.[15]
From 1989 to 2000, he served as the Manila bureau chief and correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He became president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) from 1997 to 1998.[16]
Tiglao became a columnist at the Philippine Daily Inquirer from 2000 to 2002 and from 2010 to 2013.[12] He was also former editor-in-chief of Inq7.net (now Inquirer.net), the website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.[17]
A year after the death of his first wife Raquel, he accepted the offer of the role of Press Secretary under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo - taking over the role from her first Press Secretary, Noel Cabrera, in April 2002. Tiglao subsequently moved on to the roles of Presidential Spokesman, Presidential Chief of Staff, then head of Presidential Management Staff.[18][9]
Following his appointment as press secretary, Tiglao has shifted his views from centre-lefttocentre-right. Explaining his controversial[10] decision to accept the post from Arroyo despite the reactions of his journalist colleagues,[18] he explained his position saying: "My framework has changed. It is not a matter of being an apologist. I've realized that particularly with President Gloria Arroyo, we're out to build a nation,” and "She has a real vision of creating a strong country. She is out to build a real strong state and a strong sense of nationalism. This vision has to be articulated and repeated.”[18]
He was eventually appointed by Pres. Arroyo as the Philippine Ambassador to Greece and Cyprus from 2006 to 2010. During the start of the Benigno Aquino III administration, Overseas Filipino Workers staged a protest in front of the Philippine Embassy in Athens, Greece to demand his removal due to accusations by them of "dismal performance and a lavish lifestyle". Tiglao declined to comment, stating that the matter was sensitive, and that he was on leave.[19]
In January 2013, Tiglao began writing for the Manila Times. During his work for the paper, his articles would be flagged by fact-checking bodies as false, a trend which would become increasingly notorious from time to time.
Tiglao was awarded the Best News Reporter by the Catholic Mass Media Awards in 1983.[16] In 1991, he was awarded Best Economic Journalist for Asia by Mitsubishi Foundation. In 1992, he was named one of The Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines for Print Journalism by the Philippine Jaycees.[20]
From 1988 to 1989, he was a Nieman fellow at the Nieman Foundation for JournalismatHarvard University.[21] In 2002, he became a fellow for the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at Kyoto University.[22]
Since the early 2010s, there have been incidents where assertions by Tiglao have generated controversy, have been refuted, and some fact-checked.[3][4][6] Governance and foreign policy analyst Steven Feldstein notes how Tiglao, along with RJ Nieto and Sass Rogando Sasot are part of the Philippines' network of digital repression.[5]: 153 They also noted that some members of the public tend to dismiss fact-checks done by traditional journalists because of people and columnists like Tiglao, who for example tags fact-checkers like Vera Files as "a CIA-funded outfit."[23]
Tiglao was first married to Raquel "Rock" Edralin, a women's rights advocate. He had three children with her. He became a widower when Edralin died of breast cancer in February 2001.[11] His second wife is Gethsemane "Getsy" Selirio on April 13, 2002, who was editor in chief of Inq-7.[41]
Tiglao has published three books under Akropolis, a publishing company that Tiglao founded.[42]