8:00 AM After
breakfast before
meditation at 8:45
In the meditation at the chapel from 6:30 AM to 7:30 AM, Father Cruz revealed that in Ateneo there have been instances where he has been publicly castigated by the students whom he had sacrificed for, encouraged and helped. He did not know when he went to a classroom whether he would be met with insults or at least indifference.
“In the last step in the SDK [Samahan ng Demokratikong Kabataan] training for leadership, the boys and girls are asked to strip naked to show their complete liberation from bourgeoisie mentality and ordered to engage in sexual relations. Pictures were then taken of them. Thus they were blackmailed into submission thereafter. They always seen to be close to each other, staying in each other’s company always, shying away from all the others.”
This is a graphic picture of the manner in which the communists are taking over the campuses. And this is Ateneo de Manila which is a Catholic University.
And the fathers says that the students come out of these teach-ins of the communist front organizations hating God, or so they said.
Anarchy is breaking out in the campuses. The school administrations have lost control. At this rate, the communists will have ready made common fodder for any street fighting and violence they have in mind.
With respect to the newspapers, the good father has said that he has to go to his former students to find out the truth as everything is distorted by the media.
And he had told me when we talked yesterday that the media did not give me a chance at all.
This reminds me of the observation of Shirer in his “The Collapse of the Third Republic” when he blamed the newspapers of that era in Paris for the Feb. 6 1934 riots.
“The military hierarchy and the world of big business and finance were not the only pillars of the nation whose leaders despaired of the Republic and, in some cases worked to undermine it. The free press, showing for the most part the views of the industrial and financial tycoons, many of whom financed the antiparliamentary leagues, bears a heavy responsibility for what took place on February 6. For nearly a decade the big-circulation dailies in Paris had been stirring up the public against the regime by their continual attacks on Parliament and the Radical governments which it from time to time spawned. By the beginning of 1934, they had
No Official Gazette entry for this day.
prepared the ground for drastic action against the Chamber of Deputies. Their influence in helping to incite the riots may be gauged by the fact that in the provinces, where almost all the daily newspapers were solidly republican and opposed to the new wave of Fascism, the night of Feb. 6 passed quietly and the news of the attempt to storm the Chamber of Deputies came not only as a surprise but as a shock.”
“With such weeklies (offering to the “Cadide” founded in 1924 and “Gringoire” four years later) sowing their poison and the great daily newspapers contributing their fall share, it is little wonder that French public opinion was manipulated more and more to be so scornful of the Republic and so cynical about its policies that it cared less and less whether it survived. As the moderate historian Rene Reimonel has pointed out, these big circulation newspaper of general information ‘obeyed the same passions, supported the same prejudices, saw the world through the same spectacles as the avowed rightist political dailies.’ It is the press of the Right that formed public opinion, he adds. The average Frenchman, even if he voted Left, read most often a newspaper of the Right, whose inclination was more and more toward Fascism.”
Father Lilengco [Limlengco?] who is in charge of Catholic Retreat Promotions spoke to us at Meditation (8:45 AM) for ten minutes on what they are doing to propagate retreats which may be more effective than religious instruction.
They have followed Vatican II to not only save one’s soul as we declare in our Catechism but to save others’ souls. So they give emphasis on saving the country not just souls because this means our people. And preferences are given to:
Men not women, because men can save the country.
Closed not open retreats because more immediately effective.
Leaders not followers so as to give wider and more intense effect.
While the rich can afford it as the cost is P30 a day for 50 retreatants at P1,500 then the rich have to contribute to support retreats for the poor.
And they intend to go after the seniors of high school specially in such areas like Tondo before the KM [Kabataang Makabayan] get to them.
He has stopped the retreats for the poor from sheer lack of funds. He intends to raise P150,000 first, then invest and use the earnings for the retreats for the poor.
He would like to reach at least .01 % of the senior high school students. In Tondo there would be about 45,000 high school students. If he can get the leaders (of a number of 450 that would be much).
So he asked for help if we thought this project was good.
I think the project is good. And I intend to contribute P15,000 to it from the Marcos Foundation.
Father [Jose] Cruz during the Meditations, spoke of the requirements of leadership that he is trying to develop in the young. I felt he was talking to me.
He said that there are three things required of a leader:
Competence
Command of structure—Adeptness in the use of symbols
Value or meaning to life—the Christian purpose of life which for man himself
He feels that we have it within us to build a strong nation—a small independent country that is the only true Christian country in Asia.
That our salvation is in the inherent goodness of the Filipino. He gave examples—the chemical engineer working in the Atomic Center who feels that his salary of P380 a month is too much and gives P80 to the poor people of Sapang Palay in the form of seeds and the mechanic who refused to lie and put in his father’s tools as collateral and a DBP [Development Bank of the Philippines] man issuing his own personal check for P3,000 because otherwise the mechanic would not be able to get a loan.
11:20 AM After
Conference
Father Cruz spoke of the growth of a human being as passing through periods of transition which must be negotiated gracefully.
I can go through my work and its tensions, strain and problems for about a month. Then I must take off from it to be able to retain my freshness of spirit.
The maximum level of efficiency can be sustained in combat for 17 days, the U.S. Army found. Then the sharpness is lost and the soldier becomes lax and accident prone. So he is taken off combat to preserve him.
He spoke of the need to do this specially among men who occupy executive positions. There must be some period during which you stay to yourself away from everything so as to retain your vitality.
The process of the piling up of strain and tensions is known to the psychologist as escalation. And one must watch out for it us during the peak of escalation one may do something understandable.
In his experience this escalation is manifested by irritation, a tendency to faultfinding, narrowness of breath and impatience.
The continuous daily routine of doing the same thing spends a man’s spiritual or psychological reserves. And this must be replenished by a change of environment, of work or activities.
We again, took up filters.
He strongly recommends that, as he does, a man should do something that may be of no purpose but which he likes to do every day.
Women find loneliness unbearable more than men. Men can stay by himself obsessed with work or avocation but women find it strenuous to stay alone—in an atmosphere of emptiness as Eric Ericson puts it.
And we should make accommodation for this quality of the woman who attains maturity early as she discovers while young that her purpose in life is child-bearing.
We must so study ourselves so as to learn to make ourselves not merely body with a set of needs but a continuous source of energy—as Sigmund Freud puts it.
10:45 PM
Poro Point
Had our mass after meditation (3:00-3:45 PM) and was out of Mirador at 5:00 PM. Played golf with the reporters following me up to Hole No. 2. Finished 9 holes at 6:15 PM. Went up to Mansion to call up Imelda who was at mass. Talked to Imee who seemed well and who was not feeling any pain. Then talked to Imelda.
Showered, then took a snack. When I went down, I had to listen to Blas Ople, then to [Marcelino] Lening Veloso who wanted to be retained majority floor leader of the House, then to D[emocito].O. Plaza on a forest concession and to Cong. [Alfredo] Lamen and Mayor [Luis] Lardizabal, finally on the squatter problem by the Bureau of Lands people.
Finally started to come to Poro Point at 8:10 PM. Arrived at Bauang at 9:20 PM and Poro Point at about 10:00 PM. Met [Jose] Joe Aspiras, [Joaquin] Titing Ortega, Gov. [Juvenal] Guerrero and his provincial board.
Called up Imelda at 11:00 PM.