But perhaps the greatest innovation was also the simplest: the payment of a living wage. For years, the starting salary for a Filipino soldier had been 30 centavos a day, about 15 U.S. cents at the official exchange rate, a slave wage that all but required him to “forage.” That meant demanding or stealing food from civilians or falling onto the payroll of the local oligarch. By raising the soldiers’ salary over threefold, and simultaneously letting it be known that the days of robbing from the citizenry were over, Magsaysay raised both the morale of his army and its image in the court of
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