Almost half a decade after he took his hats off from being a watchdog, Jiggy Manicad is back as one of the anchors of TV5’s news primetime show, Frontline Pilipinas, alongside fellow veteran broadcasters, Julius Babao and Cheryl Cosim.
Ahead of his first day on the job, Manila Standard Entertainment sat down with the news anchor for an interview where he discussed his emotions about returning to the small screen, his advice for aspiring journalists, and whether he had any regrets about entering politics.
Jiggy is familiar with the daily challenges of news reporting, but as he starts a new chapter in his career, he admits to feeling nervous, just like anyone else would.
“Really, I am really feeling nervous on my first day. I even asked my PM [production manager], ‘Can I come early? I’ll just do a run-through.’ I will really come early on my first day,” he said.
In year 2018, the broadcast journalist took a leap of faith in entering the world of politics aiming to serve his fellow Filipinos beyond his usual task—delivering daily news. Unfortunately, the reporter failed to enter the magic 12 of the senatorial slate.
If there were any regrets after the results came, he immediately answered, “no”. Instead, he enumerated the things he had learned during the elections.
“I got to learn a lot of things. What I did was to see it in a positive way. I had a lot of learnings. In 23 years, I had covered and interviewed numerous politicians and officials but I got to see things from the other perspective when I entered politics. I got to experience things I hadn’t experienced when I was a journalist. Before, I didn’t know how the survey and the campaign worked. Now, I knew them all,” explained Jiggy.
“Second, it’s God’s way of really stripping me of all that I had during that time. Realizations that I should listen to him—and I did. Nothing changed. Well, except my daily coverage but other than that—my livelihood, family, time, and love—those intangible things, I was able to gain them,” he added.
If given the chance to run again, the news anchor was quick to answer.
“I couldn’t do it. Let’s just be on this side where work’s more transparent and more honest. Unless you can do it, then go. As for me, I just did it since I really wanted to craft about food security. But before you would be able to do it, you needed to learn how [politics] really work. That, I couldn’t bear to do,” continued the journalist.
After what he considers “retiring,” he managed to spend more time with his family, particularly his children. He was there for them when they needed him the most, allowing him to prioritize his roles as a husband and father.
“I guess those were the realizations and more important other than career, trophies, salary, and power,” stated Jiggy.
His advice for aspiring journalists is simple: Be honest, truthful, and transparent with integrity. While covering heavy news, don’t forget the importance of sharing lighter stories, like features.
“With all the new technology and landscape of media today, truthful and honest content is still king. The public will still look for that. So, what we should do is to support it. We can do light stories, we can do featurized stories but what’s important is that the content we create should always be as much as possible very honest, truthful, and has credible information,” ended Jiggy.