Felipe Modesto Salvosa (1892-1969)

Note: This is the obituary by the Philippine scientific community marking the death of Dr. Felipe M. Salvosa in 1969. This blog is dedicated to his memory.

PAMBANSANG SANGGUNIAN SA PANANALIKSIK NG PILIPINAS 

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE PHILIPPINES

Punong Himpilan:

Pamantasan ng Pilipinas
Diliman, Rizal

Headquarters:

University of the Philippines

U.P. Post Office, Diliman, Rizal

TO ALL MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES OF THE
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE PHILIPPINES:

FELIPE MODESTO SALVOSA
1892 – 1969

It is with a feeling of sorrow and a deep sense of loss that the National Research Council of the Philippines records the death of one of its Regular Members, Dr. Felipe Modesto Salvosa, on April 21, 1969, barely 9 days before his 77th birthday. Intensely active in research work and deeply involved in the preparation of “An Annotated Checklist of Presently and Potentially Important Commercial Philippine forest Trees” until the end, his passing will be a keenly felt loss not only to his loved ones, but also to his colleagues and his country who stand to profit by his research efforts.

Born in Polillo, Quezon Province on April 30, 1892, the forest (sic) had always held a certain fascination for him. He studied forestry in the University of the Philippines and became a Ranger in 1918. Following his interests, he entered the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in 1928. He then transferred to Harvard University undertaking the study of trees and woody plants for his degree of Master of Science, major in Dendrology obtained in 1929. In the following year, the coveted Doctor of Science degree in Applied Biology, special field Dendrology, was conferred on him by the same university.

Dr. Salvosa became the Principal Teacher of the Infanta Intermediate School, 1915-1916, a Ranger of the Bureau of Forestry 1918-20, and was at one time Officer-in-Charge of the Catanduanes Forest Station, 1920-1921. Joining the faculty staff of the University of the Philippines, he started as an Assistant in Dendrology, School of Forestry, and worked his way up, first as Instructor (1923-26); Assistant Professor of Dendrology (1934-39); Assistant Professor of Botany and Dendrology (1939-46). During the war years he was the Secretary of the University of the Philippines School of Forestry and served as Dendrologist in the Bureau of Forestry for six years. He then became Associate Professor of Dendrology in what is now the University of the Philippines College of Forestry. He then transferred to the then Forest Products Laboratory (now Forest Products Research Institute) where he worked hard to satiate his interest in plants, until his retirement in 1958. Shortly after, he was appointed a Technical Assistant as Dendrologist under the United Nations, during which he continued a checklist of plants of Mt. Makiling and vicinity subsidized by funds made available by the United Nations Technical Assistance Board.

Cognizant of his proficiency in his chosen field, he was awarded a four-year fellowship by the University of the Philippines. He was the first Filipino recipient of a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship in Botany awarded by Harvard University. He collected specimens from woody plants in Florida, Key West, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Barro Colorado along the Panama Canal which contain some new genera and species published in one of the issues of the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

Dr. Salvosa made exhaustive studies and wrote extensively and variedly of the results of these studies in Philippine plants. He even wrote on the Economic Preparedness of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in which he made concrete suggestions for the well-being of the military insofar as acquainting themselves with native food stuffs is concerned and what foods they can expect from the forest areas all over the archipelago. The results of his painstaking studies have been published in different scientific journals both here and abroad.

He was a member of numerous learned societies and professional organizations besides the National Research Council of the Philippines, among them, the former Philippine Scientific Society, the Society for the Advancement of Research, the Society of Filipino Foresters and the Botanical Society of the Philippines.

Dr. Salvosa has been laid to rest but the fruits of his scientific labor will remain a living monument of his undying interest and dedication to his work.


Juan Salcedo, Jr.
Chairman

October 20, 1969