" He had a brief but storied life."
By Rodolfo C. Estimo, Jr.
If the late Rafael “Paeng” M. Salas were still alive today, he would have celebrated his 93rd birthday anniversary last Saturday, as he was born on August 7, 1928 in Bago, Negros Occidental to Dr. Ernesto Salas and Isabel Montinola.
He would have had a blast with his wife: the former Carmen “Menchu” Rodriguez of Cebu, close friends who include former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, and the so-called “Salas Boys” like Salvador “Buddy” Garbanzos, Horacio “Boy” Morales and Jose Molano, among others.
Salas was called many names. He was called Toto Cay because he was light-skinned, his fine hair tinged with golden brown, according to the biography A Millennial Man for Others: The Life and Times of Rafael M. Salas. It has multi-awarded writer Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr. and Carmen Sarmiento as co-authors.
He was also called Jolly—an apt description of him because he was by nature a happy person; while still in high school, a teacher remarked: “Even in death, Salas will still be smiling.”
On the occasion of his birthday, the Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM) sent this writer a soft copy of the book.
Assuming that he were alive today and serving the country as president, how would Salas have tackled the various problems confronting the country?
These problems include grinding poverty, unemployment, graft and corruption, smuggling, drug addiction, among others, foremost of which is the COVID 19 pandemic which has brought the country—and the world—to its knees.
Total caseload in the Philippines has crossed 1.63 million with 28,427 deaths, while global infections have touched 201 million, with 4.27 million mortalities.
The figures on infections and mortalities are alarming, to say the least, to the extent that not a few have become passive and helpless about it.
While many may have been resigned to the situation, Salas would be in the thick of it as the country’s chief executive, mobilizing local resources at his disposal.
He would tackle the issue head-on, enlisting the support of everyone from government officials to grassroot leaders and direct concerned government officials to ensure proper implementation of health protocols. He would seek experts’ opinions on vaccines and coronavirus; inspire frontliners in effectively discharging their respective tasks, especially the medical doctors, nurses and other health workers; and rally the citizens on avoiding or neutralizing the pandemic by following directives from the National Task Force Against COVID-19, whose current implementer is Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., also the vaccine czar.
He would also enlist the support of foreign countries without using foul words or threats to get what he wanted.
According to the 2020 Census, the country’s population has crossed 109,035,343. Their lives are now endangered, with the alarming situation that new strains of the virus have emerged.
On Friday, Galvez said that the NTF and the Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging and Infectious Disease activated the new crisis action plan to ensure the “more effective containment and mitigation” of highly transmissible COVID-19 strains, such as the Delta variant.
For the country to get over with the pandemic, Salas as chief executive would rely mainly on science for a solution. He’d shown early on his proclivity for it even before the world’s manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines fell back on science in their search for cure to the coronavirus.
Commenting on Salas’ proclivity for science, Francisco S. Tatad wrote in the Bulletin on February 12, 1969: “… As the first Executive Secretary to introduce science into the management of presidential affairs, Salas has given his office a respectability unknown to it before. It may not be possible at this stage of the Marcos government to breed many officials like Paeng….”
Even when he had left Malacañang as executive secretary to go to New York on July 5, 1969 and accept an offer involving population from Paul G. Hoffman, then-administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, his predisposition toward science was noted by Asiaweek Editor T. J. S. George.
“Editor George ascribed to Paeng the change in attitude to the UNFPA from traditional prejudice to scientific interest,” Nick Joaquin said in his book: The World of Rafael Salas.
On October 1, 1968, or two months after he and his wife Carmen arrived in New York, he formally became the executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, or the UNFPA.
How effective could he be in handling the crisis as a result of the pandemic? If his track record is taken into consideration, he would fare well.
In his brief but storied life (he died at 59 on March 4, 1987 in Washington, D.C.), he embarked on various activities as executive secretary in the first term of Marcos and his performance had earned him kudos from both the public and private sectors.
He had immense powers. He was in charge of the civil service, was a cabinet head or chief coordinator of the officials of the executive branch, was liaison officer and supervisor of the press office, and when so designated, the President’s official spokesman.
On his effectiveness, he showed it in his work on the government’s rice reproduction drive. In traveling the lecture circuit, he never skipped to talk on rice to rice people, making a newspaper columnist remark that he was talking more like a farmer than a bureaucrat.
He visited the demonstration farms, soil sampling centers, private farms and agricultural schools. He tramped through farmers’ markets and spent endless hours in discussion of crops and markets.
“What disappointments. What pleasant surprises. There is no conformity in the pace but the program is moving,” he said.
On July 1, 1967, Paeng was exulting over good news from the field.
“We have passed the first milestone with a flourish. Harvests of over 154,000 metric tons were reported from the priority provinces—and there is more to come,” he said.
Aside from his brilliance, Salas was also gifted with good leadership. In their book, Dalisay and Sarmiento said that outsiders marveled at Salas’ ability to spot or recognize talent and in correctly identifying people for a task or assignment.
“The Salas Boys who went on to carve successful careers in government and in the UN owe Rafael Salas for setting them on the right path. He continuously urged them to keep studying. He envisaged in them the progressive development of competent individuals, each with a deep knowledge or expertise in the field of interest—a veritable technocracy,” the authors quoted Jose Molano as saying.
Moreover, Salas went out of his way to explore and seek scholarships or study grants for his assistants from various external sources such as people he knew in the diplomatic corps. This way he earned their goodwill. They eventually did their best in what were assigned to them.
Amid the pressures of a busy office, Paeng Salas would find time to sit down with individual staff to discuss at length what each of them could best be doing in the future and what it would take for them to help achieve their ambitions.
“Thus, we had colleagues who went to Cornell, Harvard, Michigan state and Wharton; others opted for immersion programs to study government or development institutions in countries like Israel, Japan, Taiwan or Sweden, among others. Mr. Salas took the professional development of his staff quite seriously, and needless to say, other many rare opportunities for them,” Molano added.
Salas noted with gratification that before he resigned from the Marcos cabinet, Dalisay and Sarmiento added, there were more than 3,100 Filipinos he had helped in the government and private enterprises with advance training from abroad in the fields of education, health, community development, public safety, industry, transportation and highway improvement.
Salas, multiplied 3,100 times, would have been a Great Wall against COVID-19.
Rodolfo C. Estimo Jr. started his career with Daily Express, and later on found success as editor for foreign-based newspapers.