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Eugenia Apostol founded in 1985 the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippines’ newspaper which claims to have the largest share in the market today. It was politically volatile at that time and the people needed an independent publication. Under Apostol’s leadership, the broadsheet reported fearlessly on Corazon Aquino’s campaign for presidency and its jubilant climax, the EDSA People Power.

When Ferdinand Marcos closed the country’s independent newspapers at the onset of martial law in 1972, Apostol found a niche in the publication Women’s Home Companion. Before this, she edited for 20 years the women’s pages of the Manila Times and the Manila Chronicle.

She later launched a new magazine, Mr. & Ms.; in 1981 she joined a few brave others in the so-called “mosquito press” and began publishing articles that were openly critical of Marcos. When former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated in 1983, Mr. & Ms. published 16 pages of photographs and text depicting the turbulent public reaction to the killing. The magazine then started to publish weekly reports on abuses under the dictatorship, as well as on the rising opposition. The magazine sold copies by the hundreds of thousands.

In 1996 Apostol founded the Foundation for Worldwide People Power together with her friends, with the aim of improving facilities and teaching in Philippine public schools. In 2006, she was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

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