6:30 PM while waiting at Suite I
for mass to be held Sunday
at the chapel below by
Father Bautista whom we
just called
Played golf the whole morning. I must be out of form. The coolness of the past several weeks has given way to a humid sultriness that weakened me in the second nine when I was practically dragging myself.
But I go through those days with a feeling of unreality, as if it were a dream or drama of which you already know the ending.
Thus we all go through the required rituals or ceremonials of our respective roles when we know that ultimately there must be a military confrontation and the communists or revolutionist who have already pledged to mount a revolution must do so while I wait for the right moment when I must proclaim martial law and practically take over the government.
In the meantime we must fence and hedge and dissimulate.
And I must play golf to keep healthy. I must deliver the speeches that will explain the
PRESIDENT MARCOS had to forego with attendance at two gatherings because of the pressure of desk work and other matters of state.
The President was supposed to address the opening of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) regional conference in Baguio City, and the opening of the 17th national meet of the Private Schools Athletic Association held at the Garcia Stadium in Tagbilaran City.
The President instead asked his brother, Dr. Pacifico Marcos, to read for him his prepared speech at the planned parenthood conference, and Secretary of Commerce and Industry Ernesto M. Maceda to deliver his message at the PRISAA sports festival.
In his speech at the IPPF meeting, the President declared that rapid population growth is one of the gravest problems of the nation and that the government and private organizations should “work together to face the challenge of this problem.”
“No greater challenge can be given to anybody at this time in the history of mankind” the President said.
He recalled that along with 17 other heads of state, he had signed the UN Declaration on Population four years ago, on Human Rights Day.
The President said that he was in full agreement with the declaration’s statement that “the population problem must be recognized as a principal element in the long range national planning if governments are to achieve their economic goals and fulfill the aspirations of then-people.”
In the speech read for him by Secretary Maceda, the President said that development of sports is a valid enterprise, especially for developing countries like the Philippines which, he said, needs all the sound minds and the sound bodies it could muster to perform the tasks of nation-building.
He disclosed that under his administration, a nationwide sports program had been launched to imbue the people with the value of athletics.
“Although this program is aimed at raising our standards in athletics, we are more concerned with generating in our people, and especially among the youth, a high zest for sports, both for the joy of competition and for the iron incrusted on the character by the rules of the game,” the President said.
democratic revolution. We must try to keep the moderates on our side. We must cater to the media hoping that they will not cause the disenchantment of too many of the people which would merely increase the casualties in the coming struggle. We must ask the rich and powerful to acquire a conscience. Beg the clergy to keep to their task of education or tending to the spirit.
And we must keep on pushing the different projects; the Green Revolution of Imelda (gardening and backyard poultry and hog or even cattle raising) the national electrification program; the housing program; manpower training; export promotion; tourism; cooperatives; mining; oil exploration etc.
The most urgent problem is prices. And production is the real answer. More export earnings, cooperatives, anti-hoarding are pursued with vigor.
But most of them would fail because of the media, the demonstrations and the Senate or be made to appear as having failed.
I also have a feeling that all these tentative efforts of ours are futile and that all farther efforts will be frustrated by the media which supports the radicals, the demonstrators and the time-wasting in the Senate.
So there actually is no alternative but to push the situation into its logical conclusion—the denouncement of a military confrontation.
From all the intelligence information I can gather now, the old plan of the communists to start violence by July and August this year is still active and will be pursued.
The lull that we now experience seems to be a girding, a preparing—the quiet before the storm.
If they start in July, they will do so to either disrupt or intimidate and coerce the constitutional convention and to prevent the holding of the local elections.
I must protect the constitutional convention. I must allow it to function as an independent body. I anticipate this will be the cassus belli between the communists and me.
Not that they have not started their rebellion. They started it a long time ago in Central Luzon, then in Manila and suburbs in 1970. Now they are trying to tie up with the Moslem separatists, although I feel they have not had much success.
The rebellion started a long time ago. But now the intellectuals, the media, and the politicians have joined in with them—some unwittingly.
And so the crisis is slowly building up to its final climax.
In the meantime we go through the routine and ritual of normal living!