Bienvenido "Ben" Teshiba Tulfo (Tagalog: [bɪɛnbɛˈnidɔ ˈtulfo]; born March 15, 1955) is a Filipino television and radio personality, entrepreneur, and production company executive.
Ben and his BITAG program have won numerous awards for their public service and investigative shows in different award-winning bodies.
He is the son of Ramon Tulfo Sr., a colonel in the Philippine Constabulary,[2] and Caridad (née Teshiba), a housewife, who died in 2024, at the age of 97.
His program, “Bahala si Tulfo” (Now BITAG Live) was later offered a mid-morning time slot by DZME.
According to Ben Tulfo, the concept of BITAG was conceived during a Maundy Thursday (March 28) vacation at the Plantation Bay in Mactan, Cebu, back in 2002, with the unique idea of a documentary reality (often shortened as “docu-reality”) show.
BITAG focuses on ensnaring criminals and their modus operandi with elaborate documentation, surveillance and hidden cameras, often with coordination with the authorities.
Ben was then offered a primetime slot together with a co-production contract by Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC-13) back in 2004.
After signing the contract immediately, Bitag began airing on its first episode with IBC-13, and gained a large following in Philippine television.
In October of the same year, TV5 was later marred with financial limitations, which prompted Ben to move both BITAG and Pinoy US Cops to PTV-4.
Right after the financial fiasco at TV5 back in 2013, BITAG together with Pinoy US Cops were moved to PTV-4 and later considered as syndicated programs from 2014 up to the present.
Ben's BITAG Media Unlimited Inc. returned to IBC-13 in 2023, and is officially a content provider, acquiring the primetime blocks, transferring all of his television shows there.
Starting as a segment in BITAG Live, Kilos Pronto's nature is also similar to that of the full-blown program, a call-to-action public service entity.
On May 8, 2018, his sister Wanda Tulfo Teo resigned from her post after the Commission on Audit revealed she directed the placement of P60 million in tourism ads to Kilos Pronto, a blocktimer show on PTV-4, despite lack of a memorandum of agreement or contract.
[8][9] On June 17, 2018, it was revealed that Erwin and Ben Tulfo have not yet returned the 60 million in government funds that Wanda Teo gave them during her stint as tourism secretary.
[10] In August 2018, under a Senate hearing, Tulfo and his siblings declared that they will never return the money they got from the Department of Tourism, sparking nationwide outrage and backlash.