Former budget secretary Salvador “Jun” Enriquez Jr. died on Wednesday, June 2.

He was 87.

Quezon City University (QCU), where he was president from 2010 to 2019, mourned his death on its official Facebook page on Thursday, June 3.

No other details were available as of posting time.

Enriquez served as budget undersecretary during the Corazon Aquino administration, and then as budget secretary of then-president Fidel Ramos.

He was known as the Ramos administration’s “reorganization czar,” as he provided the framework for reengineering the bureaucracy. Enriquez also served as Ramos’ finance chief in the last months of his presidency.

Enriquez took pride in being a “faithful public servant.”

Speaking before the National Academy of Science and Technology in 1995, he said: “My role as a cabinet member and public servant will only have value if I am able to impart to others the virtues and the philosophy I believe in and live with. To this, a question I ask myself, and which I want you to ask of yourselves is, ‘Was I able to influence others to do his part well?’” 

Enriquez was often invited as a resource person at forums on governance. He was also a vocal critic of then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, telling her, through a media interview in 2002, that she should change her management style to achieve real reforms in government that she had promised following the ouster of her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, in 2001.

Enriquez was an advocate of amendments to the 1987 Constitution, and was one of the convenors of the Bagong Sistema, Bagong Pag-asa Movement launched in 2015.

Enriquez, who also worked for the Quezon City government as a senior consultant to then-mayor Feliciano Belmonte, chaired CPRM Consultants Incorporated, a consulting firm on development and governance.

People who had worked with Enriquez as well as QCU students posted tributes to him on social media.

In a Facebook post, QCU Radio or DZQC Quezon City University, the QCU radio station, said Enriquez taught QCU students many “golden lessons” including one encapsulated in his oft-repeated quote, “Let the good life be the benchmark of success.”

Enriquez obtained his business administration degree from the University of the East in 1953. – Rappler.com