PDI publisher passes away

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine media community is mourning the death of veteran journalist Isagani Yambot.

Yambot, publisher of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, died of cardiac arrest at his home Friday after he was discharged from the Medical City where he underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation. He was 77.

His remains lie at the Arlington Memorial Chapel in Araneta Avenue, Quezon City.

Malacañang yesterday paid tribute to Yambot.

“We believe it is no exaggeration to say the entire fourth estate wished Isagani Yambot well, as he underwent cardiac bypass surgery. It has come as a profound shock to hear his bereaved family announce his passing,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a statement.

“Isagani Yambot was a newsman in the no-holds-barred days before martial law, and continued in the profession in the oppressive martial law years; he was one of the links with the pre-martial law press who mentored a new generation of journalists to understand just how much a free press matters, and who stood shoulder to shoulder with his peers each and every time free speech came under attack after EDSA,” Valte said.

She said Yambot “was a calm, cheerful presence not only in the newsroom and boardroom of his paper, but in every gathering of note among journalists and between media, civil society, and government.”

“His was a voice of passion yet reason; the loss of his presence will be felt deeply by a nation that knows all a newsman can ask for, in the end, is this simple epitaph: he wrote it as he saw it, with honest words and with his only master, the truth,” Valte said.

Born on Nov. 16, 1934, he studied Liberal Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman and was also editor of The Collegian. He was later named fellow of the Washington Journalism Center.

Yambot was a desk editor of Manila Times in the 1950s, for which he also covered the Malacañang and Senate beats.

In 1973, he joined the United Press International as night editor and a year later, he transferred to Times Journal where he served as managing editor from 1983 to 1985. He later joined Malaya where he also worked as managing editor in 1988.

In April 1989, he became executive director of Inquirer and then appointed associate publisher in June 1991.

He served as press attaché of the Philippine embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 1981 to 1982 and of the Philippine embassy in Washington from 1985 to 1986.

In 1999, as a spokesperson for Inquirer, Yambot spoke out in defense of freedom of the press at a time when the existence of the paper was threatened by an advertising boycott initiated by the administration of then President Joseph Estrada.

Yambot was also a trustee of the Philippine Press Institute, a nationwide organization of newspaper journalists. 

In a statement posted on its website, the Inquirer said, “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved publisher Isagani ‘Gani’ Yambot. He will surely be missed but his spirit lives on in the work we do to ensure editorial policies are closely followed.”

Manila Overseas Press Club (MPOC) chairman Babe Romualdez said Yambot’s death is “a great loss to journalism.” Yambot served as MOPC president last year.

STAR president and chief executive officer Miguel Belmonte said Yambot “was a good man.”

Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma said Yambot was “a committed journalist” who “believed in the power of the mass media to serve as a catalyst for social transformation and in the responsible exercise of press freedom.”

“We hope that the younger generation of aspiring journalists will walk in the path that has been carved by his giant footsteps,” Coloma said. – With Aurea Calica