About Cherie

ABOUT CHERIE

Cherie Lei Mercado-Santos, professionally known as Cherie Mercado is a senior correspondent in TV5. Born on April 21, 1974 in Manila, Philippines, she is the youngest of a brood of four girls born to two hardworking lawyers Dante and Paz Mercado. In 2004, Cherie tied the knot with stockbroker, Michael Santos. Together, they have two children.

Education

She graduated from Assumption College San Lorenzo with a degree in Mass Communications major in Advertising and Public Relations in 1994.

Career

Cherie's first job was to teach kids computer under the company Whizkids in Paranaque. After a year, Cherie's career in broadcast started when she got accepted as a reporter in GMA7 in 1995. In a few months, Cherie moved to ABS-CBN as a part of the Cadetship
Program, a training program for launching new reporters.

In 1996, Cherie was tasked to anchor The Weekend News, which aired late nights on Saturdays and Sundays. That same year, she also started delivering the network's News Advisories. She was a field reporter for the ABS-CBN's newscasts TV Patrol and The World Tonight. She also became a host for Cinema1 Access and a segment host for Balitang K. In addition to that, she anchored The Global News, the late night news program of ABS-CBN.

As the early morning time slot became more competetive, ABSCBN decided to let Cherie host an earlier sign-on show at 4:30am entitled Gising Pilipinas. She then hosted the early morning news-magazine program, Alas Singko Y Medya together with Mon Ilagan, Cheryl Cosim, Connie Sison, Pia Guanio and Bobby Yan.

Apart from her morning shows, Cherie did a 30minute newscast for the network's AM station DZMM and breaking stories in the network's English Channel, ANC. She also hosted Coffee Talk, part of a block of the first lifestyle magazine shows on the ABS–CBN News Channel (ANC) in June 2002. The show profiles young movers and shakers in various fields . On that same year, she ranked #52 on FHM Magazine 100 Sexiest Women in the World.

In April 2004, Cherie moved to TV5 (former ABC5) to anchor Big News, the network's evening newscast. In 2008, it was reformatted to TEN: The Evening News which presented top ten stories of the day in a countdown format. Cherie also hosted Inquirer TV, the country's leading newspaper's first foray into television. She also became one of the hosts of TV5's public affairs' show Insider . In 2009, She anchored the local franchise of "CNN Connect the World" entitled locally as "CNN Konek" which aired in TV5's UHF channel Aksyon TV.

Currently, she is the main anchor of "Pilipinas News", the flagship late night news program of TV5 together with Paolo Bediones. She also hosts a radio program "Trabaho Lang with Cherie Mercado" which airs every weeknight on Radyo5, 92.3 News FM from 8:30-9:30pm.