[p.24] Am still recovering from the symptoms of flu after over-exercise last Wednesday. Sore throat, nasal drip, feverish feeling—general malaise.
But started exercising half my usual morning exercise. Then a warm shower.
On national security ….
Our principal problem is still internal subversion not foreign aggression. We are protected by the oceans from the latter. But more than this we are protected by the following set of circumstances:
1. Red China’s present internal problems of development which occupies her energies, leaders and resources.
2. The incipient quarrel between Red China and Russia.
3. Japan’s present allergy to the suggestion to rearm.
Official Gazette for January 11, 1970: President Marcos moved for the hastening of the country’s agro-industrial development by creating a top-level body, with himself as Chairman, to formulate national development policies. Dubbed the National Development Council, it has as members the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Majority and Minority leaders of both houses of Congress, the chairmen of the Senate and of the House committees, the work of whose committees is related to the subject to be discussed by the council; and the Cabinet member or members, the work of whose departments is related to the subject to be discussed by the council. With the new arrangement, the leaders of Congress, the policy making body of the government, will be fully informed on the thinking of leaders in the executive. This is expected to hasten legislation of measures affecting the nation’s economic development.
Earlier, the President directed Secretary of Justice Juan Ponce Enrile to draft a bill reorganizing the Public Service Commission, make this quasi-judicial body more responsive to the interest of the general public. The President’s directive comes in the wake of complaints continuously denouncing the PSC for acts allegedly inimical to the welfare of the general public, the supposed beneficiaries of public services.
The latest of these complaints pertains to the increase in shipping fees imposed by the management of interisland vessels, and said to have been approved by the PSC “when the public was not looking.” To make the PSC more of an instrument of public service, thereby protecting the general welfare as its utmost mission, the President has asked Enrile to draft a bill to reorganize the PSC.
On another front, the President supplemented his earlier moves to make the tourists’ sojourn here more pleasant by ordering the establishment of tourist shopping booths at the Nayong Pilipino and inside the customs zone. The President instructed acting Secretary Manuel B. Syquio of Public Works and Communications and Customs Commissioner Rolando Geotina to coordinate efforts and put up bonded warehouses inside the customs zone and in the Nayong Pilipino, where goods could be sold to tourists free of tax. This arrangement is also aimed at providing easily accessible stores for tourists, especially these who pass by Manila only very briefly while en route to other destinations, or transients about to leave who may have last minute decisions to buy Philippine goods as well as foreign products.
The presence of the U.S. in Asia.
The first three circumstances may not be there after a decade. The only deterrent would be the presence of the U.S. through bases in South Korea, South Vietnam, Thailand, Southern Japan and the Philippines. This was what Ambassador Byroade must have been referring to in his Rotary Speech last November after the elections.
The ideal situation would be if the U.S. maintain its presence with its nuclear umbrella in Asia without the indignity of American bases in the Philippines.
In the meantime the American military bases, if they have to stay, must be governed by agreements that should be updated to the level of other countries’ treaties on the same subject—like that of Spain and Thailand.
And now in the years to come, the Philippines must watch the balance of power in Asia. If Red China has no counterpoise, it may find the time to establish its dream of Asian hegemony. The counterpoise could be Russia which is trying hard to become an Asian power, and Japan which will ultimately rearm.
The ideal is Russia and Red China not settling their quarrel and Red China and Japan not being too friendly to each other.
[p.25] Whatever the international situation is, we must be prepared to defend our country alone. The classic defenses on the air, the sea and on the beaches must be augmented with the home defense concept of the guerilla which will make any attack (external or internal) of a massive nature too costly to be considered lightly by a potential aggressor.
I must establish communications in the barrios covered by the Barrio Home Defense Force. Sitio San Juan, Barrio Moriones, Tarlac, Tarlac was raided yesterday morning (after midnight) by possibly Huks out to terrorize the Barrio Home Defense Force there which fought back for 20 minutes. If there had been an alarm system, helicopters could have brought succor. Flashlight battery run and cheap and simple—buzzer coded system.
One woman was killed and five were wounded.
Two helicopters helped capture in Barrio Patling, Capas, Tarlac, Huk Commander Rody Dizon alias Rody and four companions. Dizon was still carrying the armalite of S/Sgt. Nestor M. Mariano of the 511 PC Ranger Company. The name of Mariano was still on the butt of the armalite.
We will use the helicopters more and more. One should be based at 2 PC Zone Hq. and three at the Basa Airfield on alert.
According to the men in the field, the Huks are in dreadful fear of the helicopters.
Everybody in the city speaks of the “monkees” when they were ordered disbanded a long time ago.
On foreign exchange earnings, we can offer the products of our parks, forest reserves and even the ores to be mined from our mineral reserves with [government] doing the work—provided the buyers now advance a few hundred million dollars. Am looking into this possibility.
As well as selling our old coins and minting new ones—of gold.
Monkees were a clandestine paramilitary group created to eliminate Huks.
During the Marcos period the Bangko Sentral issued the following commemorative coins in gold: Pope Paul VI visit (1970); Third Anniversary of Martial Law [Bagong Lipunan] (1970); International Monetary Fund and World Bank Meeting in Manila (1976); Inauguration of the BSP Security Minting Plant (1978); in 1977 two gold coins were issued one with Ferdinand Marcos, the other with both Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos that was the coin with the biggest denomination P5,000; 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Douglas MacArthur (1980); Pope John Paul I Visit (1981).