Veteran journalist, author Joel Pablo Salud dies at 62

MANILA, Philippines – Veteran journalist and author Joel Pablo Salud died on Thursday, March 19, after suffering a heart attack. He was 62.

Salud’s wife, journalist and author Che Sarigumba, confirmed the news to Rappler.

Salud was editor-in-chief of the country’s longest-running political and literary magazine, Philippines Graphic, for 11 years, and wrote columns for LiCAS News Philippines and Philstar Life. He joined Rappler’s Central Desk as senior desk editor from 2021 to 2022.

Salud authored numerous books, including his latest, View from the Foxhole: Shaping the Political into the Personal, which won the Hilarion and Esther Vibal Prize for Best Book in Journalism during the 42nd National Book Awards in 2024.

He also served as chair of the Writers in Prison Committee of the Philippine Center of International PEN, and was a member of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas.

“I’ve been a writer for close to 40 years,” Salud wrote in a Rappler column in 2022. “Proudly made my bones on ink and paper. Half I’ve devoted to print journalism and book publishing. I’m a journalist whose early exploits had little to do with those of war correspondents. But as a chained-to-the-desk editor, I’ve had my share of covering conflict zones — warring subject-verb, screaming double metaphors, exploding modifiers, lines that read more like the trenches than sentences, to say nothing of sharpshooting ‘fake’ news.”

“I’m proud of the years I’ve spent as a writer-editor. For me, whose formal education leaves much to be desired, it’s living the dream.”

In the last couple of years, Salud rediscovered his faith and boldly shared it on his social media accounts.

Salud is survived by his wife and their daughter, Likha. The details of his wake will follow. – Rappler.com