Press Secretary Cerge Remonde Passes Away

tiborsho 19 January 2010 Politics 270 views 3 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde Pass Away due to heart problem. Remonde was found unconscious in his office in Malacanang Tuesday but corrected this to confirm an initial report also on radio that he was found unconscious in his bathroom in his Bel-Air residence.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde was pronounced dead at 11:51 a.m. Tuesday, according to a Palace official.

Press Secretary Cerge M. Remonde assumed his present appointment on 1 February 2009. Prior to this, he was Director General of the Presidential Management Staff (PMS).

From radio reporter/commentator, Cerge rose to become a member of the Cabinet — first, as head of the Government Mass Media Group (GMMG), with a rank of Secretary then DG PMS and now Press Secretary.

Cerge served as anchor of the highly-rated DYLA Interaction, a primetime news and commentary program that set the benchmark for public affairs programming. He holds the distinction of being the first ever to rise from the ranks of provincial reporters to become the National Chairman of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP), and the first KBP chair to be elected to a sixth term. It was from there that he was plucked to join the government.

In January 2001, three days after President Arroyo assumed office, he was appointed Press Undersecretary in charge of broadcast. He was among the first batch of appointees under the 2004 mandate of the President, when he was named head of the GMMG, overseeing various government-owned media entities, including NBN 4, RPN 9 and IBC 13; Bureau of Broadcast Services or Radyo ng Bayan; Bureau of Communication Services; and the Philippine News Agency.

Prior to his appointment as DG, PMS in October 2006, he was the Lead Convenor of the National Anti-Poverty Commission in concurrent capacity with his post as GMMG chief.

Cerge traces his roots to Argao, Cebu where he spent the formative years of his life. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree, Magna Cum Laude, at the University of the Visayas (UV) in Cebu City. He took up Cooperation and Development Studies at the Afro-Asia Institute in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1986. He also attended an International Visitors Program hosted by the U.S. State Department in Washing D.C. in 1992.

His leadership in radio, television and print has earned him many awards and distinctions, among them as the Most Outstanding Visayanian in the field of Mass Media in 1998 and, together with former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., the Most Outstanding Cebuano in 1999.

Aside from his Cabinet post and his being Senior Adviser to the GRP-NDF Peace Panel, Cerge was Chairman of the Advertising Board of the Philippines, the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, and the Appeals Board of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). He also served as Commissioner of the Communications Committee for UNESCO. cebu.