Actually written 9:30 AM
May 9, 1970 as I had
a conference until 12:30 AM
Exercised hard (as usual 17 minutes of fast jogging, 50 sit-ups for the abdominal muscles, bicep fast free hand curl 100-200 times, 50 times knee-bends, push-ups between two chairs, 20 times, leg-split on my back 40 times, fast, pectoralis muscles by hands pressing up and down in front of chest, waist all round turn 30 times) felt good. Ready for appointments after one hour including bath and dressing up 9-10 AM.
10:00 AM—Met with the Sec. of FA [Foreign Affairs], National Defense, Justice, Sol. Gen., Cong. Antonio Diaz, [Nicanor] Yñiguez, Gen. [Manuel] Yan, the military liaison in the U.S. bases, and told them that our policy is to enter into negotiations for the military bases and Laurel-Langley in an atmosphere of dignity but of friendship; that any incidents that cause irritants should be discouraged and reported to the DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] so that the executive department which has the responsibility of diplomacy can perform its role; that we will not allow any arrogance or insults to our people but we should not wreck our US-PI relationships by pettiness and image-building; that the Dept. of Justice should now follow the 1965 Blair-Mendez Agreement and see to it that the lower echelon of judges and fiscals do so in a spirit of friendship not animosity.
Then met with fiscal advisers, received credentials of Malaysian and British ambassadors. For the first time I opened Malacañang to the tourists during these ceremonies. We should do this more often.
Lunch with Greg[orio] Licaros who leaves for Japan and to the U.S. for restructuring and Cesar Virata on the monetary policies as we had technically violated our commitment to the IMF [International Monetary Fund] on our dollar reserves since it had
Entry is mislabeled as April 8.
Official Gazette for May 8, 1970: President Marcos had a series of conferences as he caught up with the pace of official business after returning to Manila from an inspection trip to the southern region, while also formally receiving the credentials of two new ambassadors.
Early in the morning, the President received briefings on current official concerns from close aides and ranking officials, notably Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor, Jr., Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Romulo and Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile. After these conferences, he settled down to study reports and act on urgent papers brought up to his desk. Then he received Representative Antonio Diaz and Governor Vicente Magsaysay of Zambales and Olongapo City Mayor Amelia Gordon, to discuss problems of the province and of Olongapo City.
The President then disengaged from callers, to preside at the ceremonies where Malaysian Ambassador Hashim bin Sultan and British Ambassador John Noel Ormiston Curie presented their credentials. At lunchtime, the President had Secretary of Finance Cesar E. A. Virata and Central Bank Governor Gregorio S. Licaros for guests, during which they discussed financial matters.
The President relaxed briefly after this conference, and afterward continued to work on official papers.
gone down instead of going up. It went down to $18 million. We have started buying dollars for our reserves and this brought the actual cash reserves to more than $100 million.
I have asked monetary policy, the 4-year plan and the budget to be coordinated not only for our loans with U.S. banks, IMF and the World Bank.
So I am setting the targets for the budget as the Bicol bloc has met in caucus under Sen. D. [Dominador] Aytona and he has said that he will hold the budget in the senate until I release the funds that the senator and congressmen of Bicol are not released. Plain blackmail. And I have to be firm about this.