Ernie Baron

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Ernie Baron

Ernesto Baron (August 15, 1940 – January 23, 2006) was a Filipino broadcaster. He spent more than 40 years in the field of broadcasting. He was best known as the weatherman in the ABS-CBN news program TV Patrol. He was also known as The Walking Encyclopedia.

Considered as one of the pioneers of Radyo Patrol, which counts as contemporaries, among others, Rey Langit, Noli de Castro, Joe Taruc, Mario Garcia, and Bong Lapira, Baron, Ka Ernie to his legions of followers, started his radio career with the general information program, Mga Munting Kaalaman, on the old DZAQ, the forerunner of what is now DZMM Radyo Patrol 630.

When ABS-CBN returned on air following the collapse of the despotic Marcos regime, he hosted the radio program Knowledge Power as well as its spin-off show on TV of the same title. He also advocated the use of herbal medicine called pito pito and cleansing diet in his programs and media appearances, which irked medical professionals and then dismissed him as promoter of quack medicine.

Baron was also an exponent of scientific and technological advances in the Philippines. To attest to this, he was the inventor of the so-called Baron Antenna, a sophisticated yet reasonably-priced outdoor TV antenna.

He died of a heart attack on the morning of January 23, 2006, aged 65. He had one daughter, Shirley Baron.