Gerry Lirio

Editor in Chief

Gerry Lirio has been a newsman for 40 years. 

In 2006, he received the McLuhan Award and won the Grand Prize in the Jaime V. Ongpin Excellence Award, both for Investigative Journalism, for his stories on the “Hello Garci” controversy. 

He started writing for Mr. & Ms. Magazine several months before the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. in August 1983. He later joined the Philippine Daily Inquirer as a police reporter, exposing the involvement of some lawmen in the attempted killings of former PUP President Nemesio Prudente and the slaying of labor leader Rolando Olalia, among other cases.

He later led the Inquirer’s political team. In 1995, he exposed “Dagdag-Bawas,” a vote-padding and vote-shaving scheme in the 1995 senatorial elections that benefitted some senatorial candidates.

He headed the Inquirer’s Investigative Team in 2004 and ABS-CBN News’ own Investigative Team in 2014 until the network appointed him as its Managing Editor. At least five hours before NTC served official notice that it was putting ABSCBN off air, he broke the news to the ABSCBN’s top news brass, allowing the network to prepare for its last newscast live on free TV in May 2020. Before ABS-CBN News, he was the Head of the TV5 News Desk.

He attended a course on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University, sponsored by the Nieman Foundation in 2003. He also attended other journalism classes in Germany, South Korea, and China.