Rolando Santos Tinio (March 5, 1937 – July 7, 1997) was a Filipino poet, dramatist, director, actor, critic, essayist and educator.

Tinio graduated with honors (a magna cum laude achiever) with a degree in Philosophy from the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas at age 18 in 1955 and an M.F.A.

Bienvenido Lumbera, also an alumnus of the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas, describes this collection as elegant and with a truly contemporary tone if taken from the European literary critical view.

In response to this, Tinio published an article in the scholarly journal Philippine Studies, which contained parts of English poems translated into Tagalog.

Tinio chose the plays, designs the stage, directs, creates the costumes and determines the musical score and other sounds.

In his production of Oedipus Rex, he replaced the Greek costumes with modern renditions made primarily of metal pipes supposedly to express the thought of the industrial 20th century (Lumbera).

His work with the Ateneo Experimental Theater expresses the concept of the actor being merely one of the director's tools in shaping the stage; communicate his vision through all aspects of the production.

He published four seminal books of poems between 1972 and 1993, in which, along with his longtime friend, Bienvenido Lumbera, helped modernize the traditionally sentimental Filipino style.

[1][2][3] Tinio was known for translating Western classics, which includes the works of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, Puccini and Verdi, into Tagalog.