Salvador Laurel was a major leader of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization, the political party that helped topple the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos with the 1986 People Power Revolution.
40 Facts About Salvador Laurel
2.
Salvador Laurel was the fifth son and eighth child of Jose P Laurel, who served as president during the Second Philippine Republic.
3.
Salvador Laurel first enrolled at Centro Escolar de Senoritas, where he studied from 1933 to 1935.
4.
Salvador Laurel's father wanted Salvador Laurel to experience a public school education and so enrolled him first in the Paco Elementary School and then the Justo Lukban Elementary School.
5.
Salvador Laurel finished elementary schooling at Ateneo de Manila Grade School in 1941.
6.
The school was temporarily closed by the Japanese government as run by American Jesuits, which prompted Salvador Laurel to enroll at De La Salle College High School, where he graduated in 1946.
7.
Salvador Laurel was a member of Upsilon Sigma Phi during his university studies.
8.
President Salvador Laurel volunteered to go alone to spare his Cabinet members the ordeal of being separated from their families.
9.
Salvador Laurel wrote the poem To My Beloved Father to lift up his father's spirits and sent it to him as a Christmas present.
10.
Salvador Laurel completed his secondary education at La Salle in March 1946.
11.
Salvador Laurel was admitted to the law school while working to complete his.
12.
Salvador Laurel received his LLB degree in UP in March 1952.
13.
Salvador Laurel was a member of the Student Editorial Board of the Philippine Law Journal.
14.
Salvador Laurel was acclaimed the University Champion Orator after he won the first prize in three consecutive inter-university oratorical contests: the 1949 Inter-University Oratorical contest sponsored by the Civil Liberties Union; the Student Councils Association of the Philippines, and the Inter-University Symposium on the Japanese Peace Treaty in 1951.
15.
Salvador Laurel earned the title Doctor of Juridical Science at Yale University in 1960.
16.
Salvador Laurel later married Celia Diaz in 1950, a society debutante.
17.
Salvador Laurel had a daughter who is an actress, Pia Pilapil, to a veteran actress Pilar Pilapil.
18.
In Manila, Salvador Laurel joined his brothers in the Salvador Laurel Law Offices in Intramuros.
19.
Salvador Laurel campaigned throughout the country, convincing lawyers to join him in his quest to bring justice to the poor, and by the end of that first year, 750 lawyers had joined CLASP.
20.
Salvador Laurel officially took his oath of office as senator on December 30,1967.
21.
Salvador Laurel authored nine judicial reform laws from 1968 to 1970; the Government Reorganization Act; and amendments to the Land Reform Code, one of which created the Department of Agrarian Reform.
22.
Salvador Laurel was sent to the United Nations General Assembly three times and to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference in Lima, Peru, in 1968.
23.
Later, when he was elected member of the interim National Assembly in 1978, Salvador Laurel was designated as head of the Philippine delegation to the First General Assembly of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization in Singapore.
24.
In 1972, Senator Salvador Laurel was the first high-ranking Filipino government official to visit the People's Republic of China.
25.
Salvador Laurel was met by Premier Zhou Enlai, Vice Premier Li Xiannian, and other high officials of the Chinese government.
26.
Salvador Laurel strongly advocated for the resumption of friendly ties with the PRC and the adoption of the One-China Policy, which eventually became the official stand of the Philippines.
27.
Finally, Salvador Laurel said he would agree to run as her vice president provided she ran under the UNIDO banner but Cory refused.
28.
Salvador Laurel immediately filed his certificate of candidacy as president at the Commission on Elections.
29.
True to his word and anxious to keep the opposition united in order to win the snap elections, Laurel made the supreme sacrifice of giving up his lifetime's work and presidential ambition to give way to Corazon C Aquino.
30.
Salvador Laurel's official visit to China in 1986 was hailed as the "milestone marking the re-orientation of Philippine foreign policy".
31.
Salvador Laurel resigned from the Cabinet as secretary of foreign affairs on September 8,1987, citing as his reasons "fundamental differences on moral principles" with President Corazon Aquino.
32.
Salvador Laurel was succeeded by Raul Manglapus in October 1987.
33.
In 1992, Salvador Laurel ran for president and lost in a field of seven contenders.
34.
In 1993, Salvador Laurel was appointed by President Ramos to be chairman of the National Centennial Commission in the run-up to the Philippine Centennial celebrations of the country's independence on June 12,1898.
35.
Salvador Laurel was supposed to resign after the centennial celebrations, but President Joseph Estrada extended his term and abolished the commission only in 1999.
36.
Salvador Laurel vehemently denied the allegation and chose to stand as his own defense counsel.
37.
Salvador Laurel busied himself with the Nacionalista Party, of which he was president.
38.
In June 2003, Salvador Laurel flew to the United States to seek medical intervention after he was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes.
39.
Salvador Laurel died on January 27,2004, in his rented home in Atherton, California.
40.
Salvador Laurel's ashes were later brought to the Batangas Provincial Capitol in Batangas City for a memorial service.