DID YOU KNOW: Senate President Jovito Salonga’s 98th birth anniversary

Today, June 22, is the 98th birth anniversary of the late Senate President Jovito Salonga.

Born in 1920, he was a UP law school senior when he was captured by the Japanese military in 1942 for supporting the resistance in World War II.

Released in 1943, he took the bar exam the following year and topped it together with Jose Diokno.

In 1961, he was elected representative of the second district of Rizal.

In 1965, he won his first term as senator and was reelected in 1971.

Salonga was among those critically wounded in the Plaza Miranda grenade blast that year.

In 1980, he was arrested for his unrelenting criticism of the Marcos regime.

In 1986, with Marcos ousted, he was appointed chair of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

He returned to the Senate in 1987. Salonga died on March 10, 2016. —MARIELLE MEDINA