Outlet profile

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Philippine center-left / establishment

Owned byMajority owned by the Rufino-Prieto family through Pinnacle Printers Corporation (parent of Inquirer Holdings Inc., formerly Inquirer Group of Companies); about a quarter of Inquirer Holdings is held by Excel Pacific Holding Corp., part of Manuel V. Pangilinan's MediaQuest Holdings network.

FundingAdvertising and print/digital circulation revenue, supplemented by its broader Inquirer Group businesses (radio, tabloid Bandera, digital properties); privately held, not state-funded.

On the administrationmixed

Background

Founded on December 9, 1985, by journalists including Eugenia Apostol, Betty Go-Belmonte, and Max Soliven as an alternative to Marcos-era state-controlled media, the Inquirer became a leading voice in the press coverage that helped fuel the 1986 People Power Revolution. Ownership consolidated over time under the Rufino-Prieto family, with Marixi Rufino-Prieto chairing Inquirer Holdings; MediaQuest (linked to businessman Manuel Pangilinan) later acquired a minority stake. In 2025 the paper's corporate structure shifted from Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. to Inquirer Interactive, Inc. as it merged print and digital operations. The Inquirer built a reputation for hard-hitting coverage of the Duterte administration's drug war and was repeatedly attacked by Duterte, who called it biased and threatened the Prieto family's business interests. Its opinion pages and reporting have generally favored institutional accountability, human rights, and continuity of the U.S.-Philippine alliance, while also scrutinizing corruption and abuses across administrations, including that of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It is widely regarded as a paper of record but is not free of the ownership-linked commercial pressures common among Philippine media conglomerates.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-09-29; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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