Ted Failon: From Tacloban Radio to a Life in News and Public Service

The beginnings, partnerships, and turning points behind a career spanning local radio, national television, Congress, and True FM.

Ted Failon is a Filipino broadcast journalist, radio commentator, television host, and former lawmaker. His full name is Mario Teodoro Failon Etong, but audiences know him by the shorter name attached to decades of news and public-affairs broadcasting.

His beginnings were modest. He grew up in Tacloban, Leyte, with a jeepney-driver father, Jose, and a market-vendor mother, Josefina. As a working student, he took jobs including waiter, hotel room boy, construction worker, and tricycle driver.

His early broadcasting work was equally practical. He entered DYPL-AM in Tacloban as a driver and reporter in 1982, later becoming an announcer and production head. By 1987, he was the station manager. That progression placed him on several sides of a radio operation: gathering material outside the studio, delivering it on air, helping produce programs, and eventually running the station. He moved to DWGV-FM in Angeles City, Pampanga, as program director from 1988 to 1990.

At ABS-CBN, his third application succeeded. He started as a news desk editor and combined newsroom duties with overnight radio work, sometimes sleeping in the janitors’ quarters because going home between assignments was impractical.

Two mentors stand out in his own account. Gabby Aurillo, a broadcaster and his professor in Tacloban, showed that a provincial journalist could reach national television. Noli de Castro then helped turn opportunity into experience, encouraging him and requesting that Failon substitute on his programs when he was absent.

Another defining association was with Korina Sanchez. They became the original hosts of DZMM’s Aksyon Ngayon, which began in August 1991. The program connected people seeking assistance with government agencies and other sources of help. Its premise made public service a direct part of a broadcast: listeners could bring a concern to the station and seek a response.

For listeners unfamiliar with Philippine public-service radio, the format helps explain the significance of that work. A broadcast can become a point of contact between a person struggling with a problem and an institution expected to resolve it. On Aksyon Ngayon, that could involve seeking government assistance, connecting people with donors, or airing appeals about missing relatives. The host’s job extended beyond announcing events to helping a listener find someone who could act.

On television, Hoy Gising!, launched in 1992, made Failon and Sanchez familiar to a wider audience. Its public-service approach put complaints and government accountability in front of viewers. Their radio partnership also developed through Tambalang Failon at Sanchez, a morning program associated with pointed discussion and an often irreverent sense of humor.

Their working relationship lasted across different programs and career changes. In a 2008 interview about Harapan, their late-night public-affairs show, Sanchez described the familiarity of partners who could finish each other’s sentences. Failon spoke about the difficulty of sustaining a tandem over many years. The picture was of colleagues whose professional chemistry had grown through regular, demanding work together.

He also completed an educational goal along the way, graduating in broadcast communications from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in 1996.

In 2001, he took a different route into public life, winning the congressional seat for Leyte’s first district against incumbent Alfred Romualdez. The House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal later upheld his victory after an election protest. He served one term, from 2001 to 2004.

He later said Congress had frustrated him: advocacy depended on securing majority support, while constituents placed heavy personal expectations on their representative. He returned to full-time broadcasting after his term, saying the experience helped him question lawmakers more knowledgeably.

His return brought one of his most visible assignments. In 2004, he joined Karen Davila and Julius Babao at the anchor desk of the revamped TV Patrol World. He remained part of the flagship newscast, subsequently known again as TV Patrol, until August 2020. For viewers who did not follow his radio programs, this was often the setting in which they encountered him: delivering the day’s major stories on national evening television.

His radio work continued to change. After the Sanchez tandem came Tambalang Failon at Webb, with journalist Pinky Webb, followed by Failon Ngayon sa DZMM. The latter title became closely associated with his morning commentary. Separately, a television program called Failon Ngayon began in 2009, giving him a vehicle for investigative and documentary reporting.

The distinction between the two programs is useful for a reader unfamiliar with his career. The radio show provided a regular forum for discussing current events, while the television production could spend more time examining a particular problem. An ABS-CBN program advisory from 2014, for example, listed railway maintenance, repeated road repairs, and domestic violence among its subjects—issues rooted in the everyday experiences of commuters, households, and communities.

One of the television program’s most significant reports concerned Super Typhoon Yolanda, internationally known as Haiyan, which devastated parts of the Philippines in November 2013. Failon and his team covered the disaster in Tacloban, the city where he had grown up. The resulting documentary recorded both the storm’s impact and the human suffering that followed.

In 2014, that coverage won the Association for International Broadcasting’s award for domestic current-affairs documentary on television. The AIB winners book identifies the entry as Failon Today: Deluge. It was recognition for a team’s reporting under dangerous conditions, and it remains a concrete example of the field journalism behind his studio-based reputation.

His personal life also became public under painful circumstances. His wife, Trinidad “Trina” Arteche-Etong, died in April 2009. The National Bureau of Investigation subsequently concluded that her death was a suicide. A separate obstruction-of-justice complaint against Failon and others was dismissed, with the Department of Justice affirming that dismissal in 2010.

Failon and Trina had two daughters, known publicly as Kaye and Karish.

The next major professional turning point came in 2020. After three decades with ABS-CBN, he made his final appearances on TV Patrol and Failon Ngayon sa TeleRadyo on August 31. In its official statement, ABS-CBN said the closure of its radio broadcast operations had led to his decision to leave. The network specifically acknowledged his commitment to radio as a means of serving the public.

TV5 announced his arrival under its media banner in September 2020. His new program, Ted Failon at DJ Chacha sa Radyo5, began on October 5 on 92.3 FM, initially occupying a four-hour morning slot. The partnership carried over a working relationship from DZMM, where Chacha had already joined him on Failon Ngayon.

Chacha brought a different broadcasting background. She was known from MOR’s entertainment-oriented FM programming, and her role alongside Failon had grown from reading greetings and audience comments to contributing opinions on the issues being discussed. According to reporting from their launch press conference, Failon insisted that her name appear in the new program’s title.

The pairing gave the program two distinct points of entry: Failon’s experience in news and public affairs, and Chacha’s familiarity with entertainment radio and its audience. News5 described the intended format as a combination of hard news, discussion, and social-media features. Subsequent coverage noted how the show mixed news with music, entertainment, and conversation across generations.

The interviews remained a substantial part of that mix. In July 2025, for example, News5 reported on then-public works secretary Manuel Bonoan discussing changes to the department’s budget during an interview on the program. It is a useful example of how a morning show with lighter exchanges can also serve as a venue for questioning officials about public spending.

The station identity and frequency later changed. On November 4, 2024, True FM moved from 92.3 to 105.9, retaining Failon and Chacha among its presenters. As of October 2026, their partnership continues as Ted Failon at DJ Chacha sa True FM, with broadcasts also reaching audiences through the network’s online livestreams.

For a reader discovering him today, the morning program is a starting point. Behind it lies a career built through local station work, national newsroom assignments, public office, field reporting, and repeated changes in format. The platforms have changed, but radio has remained a place to which Ted Failon keeps returning.