Salazar spent 30 years teaching at University of the Philippines Diliman and held both history department chair and college dean positions.
From this work, he became one of the main figures in the university's indigenization movement and became a founding member of Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino (National Association of Filipino Psychology) in 1975 with Enriquez, Covar, and philosopher Leonardo Mercado.
In the 1970s, Salazar was among a number of scholars who questioned the validity of whether the recently discovered Tasaday people had indeed developed their civilization completely isolated from the Philippines since the Stone Age.
Butch Dalisay was a prisoner in the same block and reportedly drew caricatures of Scott and Salazar in his 1992 novel Killing Time in a Warm Place.
[4][better source needed] Salazar's three-year sentence was reduced to three months after his friend Leticia Ramos-Shahani, sister of future president Fidel V. Ramos, became involved.[how?]
Professor Portia Reyes from the National University of Singapore pointed out that "participation in the project allowed [Salazar] to conduct research, to travel abroad and to contribute to the production of scholarly tomes."
He led the first national conference in Filipino historiography, which produced the proceedings Paksa, Paraan, Pananaw sa Kasaysayan (Topic, Method, and Perspective in History).
Pantayong Pananaw has made it beyond the higher education system and is taught in some senior high schools as part of social sciences.