LAWYER Salvador Campos Medialdea or Bingbong, the new executive secretary, loves to sing popular classics like presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte and is a mean piano player.
An art and culture aficionado, he was one of the men behind the Manila production of the world-acclaimed musical Miss Saigon at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in October 2000, an event that presaged Manila becoming a new music capital of Southeast Asia.
Medialdea is not new in the corridors of power in Malacañang, having served under the administration of deposed President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.
During the shortened presidency of Estrada, he tried being in the public service, first to head Livelihood Corporation for a year (1998-1999) when the GOCC was still under the Office of the President.
When Livecor was transferred to the Department of Agriculture in June 1999, Medialdea stayed in Malacañang and became undersecretary in the Office of the Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs, under then Presidential Adviser and Estrada Cabinet member Angelito Banayo.
He went back to legal practice after the fall of Estrada, and was the personal lawyer, among others, of then Davao City Rep. Rodrigo R. Duterte.
He now heads Medialdea, Ata, Bello, Guevarra and Associates, a law firm with offices in the Ortigas Business Center in Pasig.
Medialdea is an avid golfer and an all-around sportsman who led in his college days the Letran Economics Society basketball team.
He is married to Betty Dizon, a lawyer and president of one of the country’s largest non-life insurance companies. They have one son.
The Medialdeas have been long-time residents of Davao with roots in Aklan and Ilocos, although Salvador grew up in Davao and studied and later practiced his profession entirely in the nation’s capital.
Medialdea is the son of the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Leo Medialdea, who was Chief State Prosecutor until he was tapped for the High Tribunal in 1999 by then President Corazon Aquino.
Then Fiscal Leo Medialdea was a close friend of then Governor Vicente Duterte of Davao province, the father of Rodrigo.
When Medialdea was transferred to the DOJ’s central office as an assistant state prosecutor, his children studied in Manila. Young Salvador finished high school at the Paco Catholic School, and then moved to Colegio de San Juan de Letran where he finished Economics in 1972.
He enrolled at the San Beda College of Law in 1973. As a young lawyer, he joined the then leading law firm Angara, Cruz, Concepcion and Abello Law office. Later, he moved to the new law firm of Ponce Enrile, Cayetano, Bautista and Reyes.
In 1995, he and some PECABAR associates formed their own law firm Medialdea, De Borja and Associates.