On October 10, 1915, Francisco “Koko” Trinidad, “father of Philippine Radio”, who greatly contributed to the education and professional life of media practitioners, was born.

In government service from 1947 to 1970 where he retired as general manager of the Philippine Broadcasting Service (PBS), Trinidad pioneered the distance learning method, or the use of radio broadcast for education purposes.

He used his station to air instructional programs for the classroom nationwide in cooperation with the Bureau of Public Schools and one of his stations also aired the proceedings of Congress and the Senate. It also aired farm programs on some radio stations and entered into regular program of exchange cultural programs with countries in the Asian Region.

His program concentrated on public service and educational shows which he patterned after the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

As greatly concerned to the education and professional life of media practitioners, Trinidad joined the faculty of the University of the Philippines, in between 1970 to 1980 where he helped develop new breed of broadcasters.

Prior to that, after high school, Trinidad worked at the Far Eastern Broadcasting Company as announcer and program arranger; promoted to chief of program arrangers; and later appointed as production coordinator. He became production manager after sometime.

During World War II, he became a director of stage presentations at the Avenue, Lyric, and Strand Theatres.

After the war, he served his country as producer- announcer for the U.S. Office of War Information and Program Director for the U.S. Information Service from 1945-47.

He also held key positions which include: Secretary-General of the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines (UNAMCOM) in 1986 for which he retired in 1990; program director of Radio Veritas Asia (International Service).

Koko Trinidad was married to the writer of the hit radio drama “Gulong ng Palad”, Carolina Flores (popularly known as Lina Flor). They were blessed with 4 children.

Koko died on January 21, 2001 at the age of 85.

Sources:

Philippine News Agency archives
Lina Flor: The woman is sorely missed, Inquirer.net

(Filed by JR AMIGO/ai/mnm)