Salvador P. Lopez; Ex-Philippine Ambassador

Salvador P. Lopez, a former Philippine ambassador to France and the United States, a representative to the United Nations and president of the University of the Philippines, has died. He was 82.

Lopez died Tuesday of a heart attack, his family said.

As president of the University of the Philippines from 1969 to 1975, Lopez struggled to uphold academic freedom during a period of student unrest against the late Ferdinand Marcos. The campus became a major recruiting center for Muslim and Marxist insurgents who took up arms against the Marcos government.

Lopez was born in southeastern Luzon Island and educated at the University of the Philippines. He served in the Philippine army during World War II and was captured by the Japanese at Corregidor when the U.S.-led garrison surrendered in May, 1942.

A former journalist, he became a diplomat after the war when the Philippines became an independent country. He served as Philippine minister to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland in the mid-1950s and was the Philippine ambassador to France from 1955 until 1962. He served as ambassador to the United States in 1968 and 1969.

Lopez was critical of U.S. treatment of his island republic, commenting typically in a trip to Los Angeles in 1969 to address the World Affairs Council: “Since independence, when we were weak, rising from the ruin of the war, you took unfair advantage of us.”

He served as his nation’s acting permanent representative to the United Nations in 1953 and 1954 and was the representative from 1964 to 1968 and 1986 to 1988.

Lopez stepped down as university president in 1975 but remained a professor until 1986.

He is survived by his wife, Adelaida, and two daughters.