We are all preoccupied with plans for the new year—the venality and viciousness of the media and the arrogance and cupidity of the Senate; a tax-free shopping center in the International Airport; the rich in our society investing their money abroad or buying insurance by contributing to the radical societies.
As I listen to the remarks about the infiltration of media and the need for a strong leadership I cannot but wonder inside me if the crucial hour of decision is not fast approaching when I must determine whether the irremediable step of martial law is the only course of action if we were to save our republic.
But I am decided that there must be massive sabotage or an overt attempt to overthrow the government before I declare martial law. Thus the decision will be better understood and supported by the people and by foreign governments.
I have been going through OPLAN Bukang Liwayway and I conclude it has to be refined. There must be the least rupture of government function but our orientation and philosophy must be completely altered. So instead of civil officials being commissioned in the Armed Forces, a Military Administration should be established under which the civil official could function with military overseers [oversight].
But all judicial decisions and legislative acts should be subject to review by the Commander-in-Chief or his office.
However, I am establishing immediately an Internal Security Agency and a Psy-war Office in the DND [Department of National Defense] to attend to the problems like officers and men in the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] with leftist leanings.
This is one of the lessons we learn from the [Victor] Corpus incident. I am thankful for this in a way. Now we can clean up the AFP as I have always wanted to do without causing too much alarm.
No Official Gazette entry for this day.
The Corpus Incident or the 1970 PMA Armory Raid marked the defection of Victor N. Corpus, an instructor at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio, to the New People’s Army on December 29, 1970. Corpus guided an NPA team that raided the PMA Armory. Corpus defected to the NPA in 1970 due to his disillusionment with corruption in the military, but later surrendered to the government in 1976 after disillusionment with the Communist Party of the Philippines. After imprisonment the remainder of the Marcos Administration, Corpus was reinstated into the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 1987. He retired with the rank of Brigadier General in 2004. In 1989 he published a memoir on the communist insurgency “Silent War.”