| Balanced News, Fearless Views | |
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.jpg) Front page from December 11, 2019 | |
| Type | Dailynewspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. (1985–2025) Inquirer Interactive, Inc. (2025–present) |
| Founders | |
| Publisher | Juliet L. Javellana |
| President | Paolo R. Prieto |
| Editor | Joseph Voltaire L. Contreras |
| Associate editor | Raul O. Marcelo |
| Managing editor | Robert Jaworski L. Albaño |
| News editor | Dewey Joseph G. Yap |
| Opinion editor | Juliet L. Javellana |
| Sports editor | Francis Ochoa |
| Photo editor | Remar Zamora |
| Founded | December 9, 1985; 39 years ago (1985-12-09) (14,564 issues) |
| Political alignment | Centre-left[citation needed] |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Media Resource Plaza Building, 2530 Mola corner Pasong Tirad Streets, La Paz, 1204,Makati,Metro Manila,Philippines |
| City | Makati |
| Country | Philippines |
| Circulation | 1,979,000 |
| Readership | 47.12% |
| Sister newspapers | Inquirer Bandera,Inquirer Libre,Cebu Daily News |
| ISSN | 0116-0443 |
| Website | www |
ThePhilippine Daily Inquirer (PDI), or simply theInquirer, is anEnglish-language newspaper in the Philippines. Founded in 1985, it is often regarded as the Philippines'newspaper of record.[1][2] The newspaper is the most awarded broadsheet in the Philippines and the multimedia group, called The Inquirer Group, reaches 54 million people across several platforms.[3]
ThePhilippine Daily Inquirer was founded on December 9, 1985, by publisherEugenia Apóstol, columnistMax Solivén, together withBetty Go-Belmonte during the last days of, and becoming one of the first private newspapers to be established under theMarcos regime.[4]
TheInquirer succeeded the weeklyPhilippine Inquirer,[4] created in 1985 by Apostol to cover the trial of 25 soldiers accused of complicity in theassassination of opposition leaderNinoy Aquino atManila International Airport on August 21, 1983. Apostol also published theMr. & Ms. Special Edition, a weekly tabloid opposed to the Marcos regime.[4]
As the successor to the previousMr. & Ms. Special Edition and the weeklyPhilippine Inquirer, it was founded on a budget of ₱1 million and enjoyed a daily circulation of 30,000 in its early days. The new daily was housed in the dilapidated one-story Star Building at 13th and Railroad streets in Port Area,Manila. It was put out by 40 editors, reporters, correspondents, photographers and other editorial employees working in a 100-square-meter newsroom. ColumnistLouie Beltran was named itseditor-in-chief.
The newspaper was instrumental in documenting the campaign ofCorazon Aquino during the1986 presidential elections and, in turn, the1986 People Power Revolution. Its slogan,Balanced News, Fearless Views, was incorporated to the newspaper in January 1986 after a slogan-making contest held during the first month of theInquirer's existence.[4] In this period, the newspaper reached a high circulation of 500,000 copies a day.
In July 1986, questions about finances and a divergence of priorities caused a rift among the founders that led Belmonte, Soliven, andArt Borjal's split from the Inquirer to establishThe Philippine Star.[5] As Belmonte owned the Star Building where theInquirer was headquartered, the newspaper amicably transferred to the Soliven-owned BF Condominium on Aduana Street,Intramuros.[5]
In February 1987, Federico D. Pascual, former assistant managing editor of theDaily Express, was named executive editor of theInquirer and was appointededitor-in-chief two years later.[4] It was during his term in 1990 that theInquirer took the lead from theManila Bulletin to become the Philippines' newspaper with the highest circulation.
However, in July 1990, the Inquirer headquarters in Intramuros was damaged by the1990 Luzon earthquake. On January 5, 1991, the newspaper transferred to the YIC building along United Nations Avenue and Romualdez Street in Malate.
Inquirer's longest-serving and first womaneditor-in-chief, the lateLetty Jimenez-Magsanoc,[6] was appointed on June 14, 1991. She was a former columnist and editor of thePanorama Sunday magazine ofBulletin Today (now Manila Bulletin) who was sacked for writing articles poking fun at Marcos. She editedMr & Ms Special Edition until the fall of the Marcos regime. She was also the first editor-in-chief ofSunday Inquirer Magazine.[7]
Under her term, on January 12, 1995, theInquirer moved to its current headquarters inMakati after transferring headquarters four times.
PresidentJoseph Estrada accused theInquirer of "bias, malice, and fabrication" against him, charges that the newspaper denied. In 1999, several government organizations, pro-Estrada businesses, and movie producers simultaneously pulled their advertisements from theInquirer in a boycott that lasted for five months.[8]Malacañang Palace was widely implicated in the advertising boycott, which publisherIsagani Yambot denounced as an attack on thefreedom of the press.[8]
In 2017, according to the survey conducted by AGB Nielsen, theInquirer was the most widely read newspaper in the Philippines.The Manila Bulletin andThe Philippine Star followed as the second and the third most widely read papers, respectively.[9] Magsanoc died on December 24, 2015, atSt. Luke's Medical Center inTaguig.[7][10] A month after her death, Jimenez-Magsanoc was recognized as the Filipino of the Year 2015 by theInquirer.
On February 2, 2016, theInquirer appointed its managing editor Jose Ma. Nolasco as the executive editor, the new top position of the newspaper, replacing the traditional editor-in-chief position used by theInquirer for more than three decades.[11]
In 2017,Ramon S. Ang bought out the shares of the divesting[12][13] Prieto family and became the majority shareholder at 85%, followed byManny Pangilinan having the remaining 15%.[14]
TheInquirer runs a subsidiary publication titledPop!, focusing on popular and Internet culture.[15] On October 1, 2024, it dissolved the Entertainment section and merged it with the Lifestyle section.[citation needed]
On July 1, 2025, theInquirer is integrating its print and digital operations, with the Philippine Daily Inquirer continuing its print edition under Inquirer Interactive, Inc. as publisher from Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc., the owner of the broadsheet itself which will be shutting down operations entirely as a company.[16][17][18]
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According to the company's website the newspaper has over 2.7 million nationwide readers daily, it enjoys a market share of over 50% and tops the readership surveys.[19]
ThePhilippine Daily Inquirer was considered as one of the trusted news sources among Filipinos in 2022, with a trust rating of 65% according to the Reuters Institute.[20] In the 2023 Digital News Report by Reuters Institute, the trust rating rose to 68%, making it one of the most trusted broadsheets in the country.[21] The same study also cites theInquirer, with a weekly reach for print of 28% with 13% reaching users at least three days a week; which makes it the most read broadsheet in the country. In terms of online reach, 36% of people in the survey read the online edition with 20% reading the paper at least three days a week, ranking third, next to GMA and ABS-CBN.
At least two opinion pieces cite theInquirer as the Philippines'newspaper of record but as an opportunity for criticism.The Manila Times criticized it for "publish[ing] ... vapid, unthinking positions", which it called "reprehensible, at best".[22] In 2014,Leloy Claudio in an opinion piece forGMA News noted it as a "de facto paper of record", and added: "This distinguished history only makes it more painful to say that the paper is starting to suck."[23]
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