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When then Congressman Ferdinand E. Marcos delivered a eulogy at the necrological services for Colonel Salvador F. Reyes in January 1958, he cited the late officer as having “redeemed the honor of the Filipino soldier in Northern Luzon” because of his war exploits in that area. This statement of the future Philippine president was made in the historical context of Salvador’s actions to stop the many depredations and killings committed by guerrilla forces that operated in Northern Luzon during World War II.</div>
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Colonel <em>Salvador Formoso Reyes</em> was born 11 August 1893, the first of six children of Gregorio Reyes and Sebastiana Formoso, both of Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, Philippines.</div>
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Among the first products of the famed “Thomasites” or American soldier-teachers who came to the Philippines aboard the SS Thomas to teach Filipinos the English language and the American way of life, Salvador finished high school in two years at the Ilocos Sur High School in Vigan, capital town of Ilocos Sur. Immediately afterward, he became a classroom teacher and then principal (1909-10) in his hometown of Santa Maria.</div>
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In 1911, Salvador pursued higher education in the Philippine Normal School, Manila, graduating two years later. Subsequently, he undertook preparatory law in the University of the Philippines, during which period he had the opportunity to take the examination for admission to USMA. Salvador topped the examination and in 1914 entered USMA together with Fidel V. Segundo of Laoag, Ilocos Norte. Upon graduation in August 1917, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Philippine Scouts, US Army.</div>
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Meanwhile, the war raged on in Europe, and in order to demonstrate the Filipinos’ loyalty to their mother country, America, then Senate President Manuel L. Quezon offered one Filipino infantry division to be sent to France with American soldiers. Salvador was given the rank of captain in the Philippine National Guard Division being organized and trained for this purpose. While he trained for overseas duty, the war ended on 11 November 1918. Salvador was then returned to the Philippine Scouts in Fort Mckinley (now Fort Bonifacio).</div>
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Back in the Philippine Scouts as a second lieutenant, Salvador served from 1918-20 with the 45th Infantry Regiment in Fort McKinley and Fort Mills, Corregidor. In 1920, he was reassigned to the 24th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Stotsenburg, Pampanga (now Clark Air Force Base).</div>
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In 1931 Salvador was reassigned from Fort Stotsenburg to be the commandant of the Reserve Officers Training Course (ROTC) unit at the University of the Philippines’ Vigan Junior College. After three years he was reassigned to the ROTC unit of UP Manila as assistant commandant and plans and training officer. He was promoted to major in 1934, and in 1936 designated commandant of the UP ROTC Manila.</div>
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In 1936, upon the inauguration of the Philippine Commonwealth, Salvador, together with other selected Philippine Scout Officers, was detailed to the fledgeling Philippine Army of the Commonwealth Government that was then being organized with the assistance of the Commonwealth’s Military Adviser, General Douglas MacArthur. He was given the rank of colonel in the PA. He remained as commandant, UP ROTC with the concurrent assignment of superintendent of ROTC units, Philippine Army.</div>
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He served as superintendent of ROTC units until 1940, when he was reassigned as district commander, Second Military District (PA) with headquarters at Camp Ord (now Camp Servillano Aquino) until early 1941. As war clouds began to gather over the Pacific and Far East, Salvador with other selected senior officers of the PA attended the Command and General Staff School at Baguio City as a prelude to the mobilization of PA reserve troops for the defense of the Philippines.</div>
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Shortly thereafter, in August 1941, when the scheduled mobilization of PA reserves began, Salvador was designated chief of staff of the 71st PA Infantry Division comprised of 20-year old “trainees” drafted from the island of Negros. With station at Camp O’Donnel, Capas, Tarlac, the 71st Division was one of the ten PA infantry divisions mobilized to make up the bulk of the US Army Forces in the Far East under its newly designated commanding general, then Lieutenant General Douglas MacArthur.</div>
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Just after the outbreak of the Pacific War, Salvador’s division was committed to battle despite the fact that its mobilization was not yet complete. Nevertheless, as the reserve division of I Corps, under then Major General Jonathan Wainright, it was hastily sent from Urdaneta, Pangasinan to meet the brunt of the Japanese invasion forces that had landed in Damortis and Agoo, La Union, at the northern end of Lingayen Gulf in Pangasinan. In the process, the 71st Division fought successive delaying actions at Damortis, (La Union), Sison (Pangasinan) and Porac (Pam-panga) while the main forces of the USAFFE retreated to the Bataan stronghold where they would make their main stand.</div>
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Salvador was wounded in Damortis. In spite of this injury, he was instrumental in rallying elements of the 71st Division in saving a squadron of the 26th Cavalry (PS) from being annihilated as it encountered Japanese tanks in the vicinity of Sison, Pangasinan. Upon reaching Bataan, Salvador helped reorganize the 71st Division which had been decimated as a result of the continuing rear-guard actions that it had fought all the way from Lingayen Gulf to the gateway to the Bataan Peninsula at Porac, Pampanga. Thereafter, his division was assigned to take up the entire beach defense sector along the west coast of Bataan facing the South China Sea.</div>
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As chief of staff under the 71st Division’s newly designated commanding general, Brigadier General Clinton Pierce, who had led the 26th Cavalry PS in the retreat from Lingayen to Bataan, Salvador was responsible for drawing up the battle plans of his division in defending its sector along the beaches. These battle plans contributed in a large measure to the annihilation of the Japanese forces in the well-known “Battle of the Beaches” in February 1942. Japanese troops in this battle died to the last man.</div>
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After Bataan’s surrender, Salvador made the infamous Death March. He became a minor victim of the many atrocities committed during the march when a Japanese officer struck him with a riding crop across his face because he had allowed some of his fellow prisoners who were too weak to walk to ride in a carromata. Salvador became one of the thousands of prisoners of war in the equally infamous Capas concentration camp (April to October 1942), ironically at Camp O’Donnel where the 71st Division was initially stationed. Upon release, he stayed in Manila and engaged in civilian jobs in order to survive, in the meanwhile seeking contacts and keeping in touch with resistance forces. He returned with his family to Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, in June 1944.</div>
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Back in his native place, Salvador joined the USAFIP-Northern Luzon Guerrilla Command (Volkman’s Guerrillas) as G-5 in November 1944. Locally, Colonel Reyes was later hailed as the “deliverer” or “savior” of all peaceful and law-abiding citizens in Northern Luzon from the widespread grip of fear, of the ruthless “Sagad” (or “Broom”). Sagad was regarded as the scourge in the area because he had killed, raped and otherwise terrorized so many people in the provinces of Ilocos Norte, Abra and Ilocos Sur.</div>
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The dreaded Sagad was Emilio Escobar, a company commander of the 15th Infantry Regiment, USAFIP NL. The mission given Salvador by the USAFIP NL Command was to “arrest and pass judgment” on Sagad. Going by a PT boat with a few selected men, Salvador landed in Santiago Cove, a few kilometers south of his hometown of Santa Maria. Proceeding to Santa Maria with the arms that they had carried in the PT boat, Salvador succeeded in the single overnight stay to recruit, organize, and train a company of volunteers. The following day, at the head of this newly formed company, Colonel Reyes, by a ruse, successfully disarmed the entire company of Sagad that was then operating in the vicinity. The end for Sagad after his capture and court-martial by Colonel Reyes was swift and decisive—a well deserved execution by musketry.</div>
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It was primarily for this exploit that President Ferdinand Marcos in 1958 eulogized Colonel Reyes as having “redeemed the honor of the Filipino Soldier in Northern Luzon.”</div>
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With the capture and elimination of Sagad, Salvador became so popular in his home province that long after the complete liberation of Northern Luzon and when Salvador was already in retirement from the military service, he was prevailed upon to run for public office. Politics, however were never Salvador’s inclination or liking, although he could have easily been elected either governor or assemblyman of his province of Ilocos Sur. Because he saw a gross inconsistency between the hypocrisy and deviousness of politics and the “straight and narrow path” he had followed as a professional soldier, he turned down all pressures to enter politics.</div>
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In the post-war period, President Manuel Roxas, shortly after his inauguration in May 1946 as the last commonwealth president, summoned Colonel Reyes to the Malacanang Palace. The purpose was to sound out Colonel Reyes on the President’s intention to nominate him as the first chief of staff of the post-war Philippine Army. Salvador of course had no hesitation in accepting a position that was the culminating ambition of any professional soldier—the premier post of his country’s military organization. The President, however, before extending his nomination, asked his Secretary of National Defense to interview Salvador. In the course of this interview Salvador made the remark that he was willing to accept the proffered appointment provided he would not be made a “political football.” These remarks were enough to end all prospects of his appointment as chief of staff.</div>
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Shortly thereafter, Colonel Reyes returned to the US Army, and served for over one more year until his retirement in 1948. He then applied for and became a US citizen.</div>
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Soon after retirement, Colonel Reyes enrolled at the College of Law, Adamson University, to pursue the law course that had been interrupted thirty-five years previously by his entrance to USMA. During die almost four years he spent as a law student, he adopted a rather cavalier attitude in attending his classes. Nevertheless and in spite of his advanced age (59 years), he managed after graduating to score a respectable 85% on the bar examination.</div>
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In 1953, he took up residence in San Francisco, California together with Mrs. Reyes and their minor children. It was in San Francisco at the Presidio Hospital of the US Army that he died on 11 January 1958 at the age of 64.</div>
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Then Philippine President Carlos Garcia made arrangements with the highest authorities of the US Defense Department to return him to the Philippines for burial. The USAF thereupon flew his remains to Clark AFB where a Philippine AF plane brought the remains to Manila. He was buried with full military honors by the Philippine Army in a family plot at La Loma Cemetery, his coffin bearing the Philippine and American flags which he had both served with such loyalty and dedication. His remains were later transferred to the Loyola Memorial at Marikina.</div>
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In April 1973, a grateful town of Santa Maria honored Colonel Reyes’ memory by installing and inaugurating his bust at the Santa Maria Public Plaza. The bust had been sculptured by no less than the famous national artist, Guillermo Tolentino. President Ferdinand E. Marcos, an associate of Colonel Reyes in the USAFIP (NL) guerrillas, sent a personally signed scroll for the occasion, paying tribute to Colonel Reyes. A copy of this scroll was given to his widow while another was given to the municipal government of Santa Maria.</div>
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Colonel Reyes was married to the former Maria Villaflor of Cauayan, also in Ilocos Sur, by whom he had 13 children (7 boys and 6 girls) all of whom became professionals.</div>
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Colonel Reyes’ life can best be summed up in the West Point code of “Duty, Honor and Country.” For truly he kept faith with this code till his last dying breath.</div>
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