‘When we say we miss Salonga, perhaps what we really mean is we miss the part of ourselves that once believed we deserved leaders like him. We miss the bar he refused to lower.’
SENATORS have come and gone. Each leaves behind an echo: some faint, some fleeting, some quickly forgotten. But when we speak the name Jovito Salonga, we are not recalling a passing term. We are naming a standard. A moral compass that refuses to rust, even as history moves on. Salonga is the figure we return to when our nation feels adrift. His name sounds less like politics and more like principle. Less like ambition, more like service.
He was born in Pasig, a child of the river town. But his roots ran downstream back to what the Spaniards regarded as the “Ever and Loyal City.” His lineage traces back to Felipe Salonga, son of the great Lakan Dula of Tondo. As the story goes, the name Salonga finds its root in “lungga,” a cave, a hollow refuge. Once a mark of obscurity, it was softened over time, romanticized into something noble. Yet the memory endures: a name shaped by struggle, born from humble ground. It reminds us that greatness need not come from grandeur but from passion, persistence, and the courage to rise from what is modest without shame. Tradition tells us that Dayang Kalangitan, the queen who once ruled both Tondo and Pasig, is among their ancestors. Her story, half history and half hymn, still drifts in the silt of the riverbanks. If this legacy holds true, then Salonga carried more than the honor of statesmanship. He carried the memory of a people who once ruled with dignity before they were ruled by others.
Perhaps that explains the strength in him. The moral clarity. The courage not just to speak, but to withstand. In the 1960s, President Diosdado Macapagal, who also lays claim to descent from Tondo’s final rulers, would at times engage Salonga in quiet conversations of ancestry meeting ancestry, not in boast, but in recognition. It wasn’t political posturing. It was heritage recognizing itself. But Jovito Salonga didn’t need a crown. He had integrity instead. He did not inherit power; he earned it.
During World War II, he joined the resistance and was captured by Japanese forces. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and beaten in front of his father, but was spared during Kigen Setsu, Japan’s national foundation day, when prisoners were released by lottery. His name was drawn. History, it seemed, had other plans for him. After the war, he took the first Philippine Bar Exam held in peacetime and topped it, tying with Jose W. Diokno, another future giant of conscience.
He was later chosen to succeed his brother, Isayas Salonga, as congressman of Rizal’s second district. From there, he rose steadily but never rushed. His ambition was always tempered by a higher calling: to be fair, to serve, and never to forget where he came from. When he entered the Senate, he didn’t fill the room with grandeur. He filled it with gravity. He was an orator who refused to be silent. He was present, but never performative.
Last Sunday, as part of the Araw ng Pasig celebrations, a simple bust of Salonga was unveiled at Rizal High School, where he once studied. It also marked his 105th birthday. Friends and family gathered not just to remember a senator, but to honor a son. There is no grand avenue named after him. No towering civic center. No school buildings bear a distinct “Salonga Type” architectural style. And perhaps that’s exactly how he would have wanted it. He never imposed his legacy on the throats of the people. He let it speak for itself. The people insisted he be remembered because some names, even when quiet, stay deeply rooted in the nation’s soul.
I grew up in a family with close familial ties to the Senator. On our way to the Ateneo, my father would tell me stories of how Tiyo Vito walked in slippers on his way to school, how his favorite fish was simply all his family could afford, how his love for education took him from Pasig to UP, then Harvard, and eventually Yale. At the time, I thought they were just stories. Only later did I realize that they were blueprints. My father was teaching me that humility and excellence can live in one life. He also told me about another Pasigueño, Rene Saguisag, a family friend whose ancestral house stood behind ours. These men were not distant heroes. They were neighbors and integrity, like river wind, walk quietly among us. Beside us. Around us. Never far, just often unseen. Their brilliance came without spectacle, and their service without need for applause.
Today, we remember Salonga not because the present is broken, but because memory steadies us. His time had its darkness, war, dictatorship, and systemic corruption. Yet he endured. He did not waver. He turned down bribes. He refused campaign donations from powerful businessmen, many of whom would later call him the greatest president the country never had. He once said that the Philippines needs full-time legislators, not those simply seeking a seat in the people’s house. It was not a complaint. It was a reminder.
When we say we miss Salonga, perhaps what we really mean is we miss the part of ourselves that once believed we deserved leaders like him. We miss the bar he refused to lower. Still, we do not need Salonga to return. What we need is someone like him. Someone not clothed in myth, but in conscience. Someone the river can raise again, not to dominate, but to serve. Not to impress, but to endure.
Perhaps the Pasig River still sings of Kalangitan. Of Lakan Dula. Of a child named Jovito, who rose with principle and stood so that others might live with dignity. That same river that mothered us all still waits for others like him to rise, just as the goddess Aphrodite once rose from the foam of the sea: unexpected, radiant, but necessary.
