Saturday
Our society is getting worse and worse.
The media is more than irresponsible. It is more than licentious. It is vicious. It not only distorts or slants news. It fabricates news.
The owners of media not only tolerate this situation. They have brought it about. All they think of is profit, increased circulation or listenership, additional advertisement and more money.
Most of the citizens in the city are cynical and hardened to vice. Pornography and sexual display is casually treated.
Incursion into and violation of privacy is the rule.
Decency has been forgotten. For that matter the old virtues have been discarded.
Official Gazette for May 1, 1971: President Marcos renewed his pledge to protect the rights of labor, the farmers, the workers and the small people when he extemporaneously spoke before the delegates to the first Workers Congress, which was held in lieu of the traditional Labor Day parade by some 4,000 labor organizations at the New Selecta. He also took occasion to seek the support of labor in tackling the many problems confronting the country.
“I need your help,” the President said. “The government and the Republic needs your help and as long as each and every one of us gives his modest contribution for the progress and welfare of the country, we will succeed.” The President also warned the labor leaders against the activities of instigators who had penetrated as far north as Cagayan and Batanes, and south as Mindanao and Sulu, spreading the lie that he (the President) is against the rights of the farmers, the small tenants and small workers. “I want to reiterate here,” the President said, “that no matter what happens, I will stand by my pledge to protect labor, the small farmers and the poor people of the country.”
Back in Malacañang, the President directed the Department of Justice and the Department of Education to look into the reported sale of a school site in Quezon City to a private individual. The Palace action was in response to a petition signed by about 600 parents of 4000 schoolchildren who faced the prospect of being forced out of the school. Later in the afternoon, the President approved the issuance of entry visas to six nationals of three European communist countries, who are coming either as tourists, on business, or as officials of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Two of the foreign nationals are Czechoslovakian, three are Bulgarians and one Polish. The Department of Foreign Affairs recommended the approval of the issuance of entry visas to them.
In the evening, the President conferred with Mayors Udtog Matalam, Jr. of Pikit and Nicolas Dequiña of Midsayap, both of Cotabato, who assured him that they would control their respective constituents to avert further untoward incidents in their areas of jurisdiction. The two mayors, who were summoned to Malacañang by the President in an effort to avert further trouble in Cotabato, pledged to get together in case of the occurrence of any untoward incident, and to restrain their respective constituents from committing atrocities in their areas.
During the conference, the President stressed the need for the restoration of peace in the two towns to enable the people to go back to their farms, and for the government to adopt a system of rehabilitation in the area. Also present at the conference were Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and Brig. Gen. Eduardo Garcia, PC chief.
Among other actions, the President, informed of the outbreak of violence at the demonstration in front of Congress late in the afternoon where three persons were killed, ordered Secretary of Justice Vicente Abad Santos and Secretary Enrile to make a thorough inquiry into the incident and to make sure that anyone responsible for any crime in relation to the incident be made to answer for it.
In government, while most of the men around me are dedicated and hardworking, the lower-ranking officials have been tainted and corrupted.
The hardworking honest public servant is an exception.
In the Legislature, specially in the Senate, they are obsessed with their own personal feuds and fights for power like the conflict for the presidency of the senate. Filibustering is the rule. To get into the headlines, no matter how, is the primary obsession.
The Legislat[ive] program has bogged down in the Senate.
Their main preoccupation is politics. Everybody is working for only one objective—maintain dominance in politics. The problems of the country and the public welfare is secondary if at all considered.
Our salvation is the province and town and barrio.
But even there, the media and the communists are slowly getting a foothold.
Before it is too late, we must recast our society.
We must reform.
And it seems as if I am the only one who can do it. At the risk of our family’s future I have to.
Imelda agrees with me that we must gather all the wealth and security, prestige and power we have acquired through the years and wager it on a single throw of the dice of fate for the sake of the people and the Republic.
Otherwise we default in our duty.
If there is further violence, I must declare martial law and reform our society.
11:15 PM
I took time out from the dinner for some of our close friends to write these lines.
At 5:45 PM, four demonstrators were killed by gunfire apparently from the police or/and Metrocom [Metropolitan Command], in front of the Congress.
The initial report was that the firing started from the ranks of the demonstrators. One Metrocom soldier was wounded.
I have given my reports for this unfortunate incident and ordered Sec. [Juan] Ponce Enrile and Gen. [Mariano] Ordoñez of Metrocom to conduct an investigation.
Apparently the communists and radicals are increasing the tempo of violence to attain their timetable for heightened violence in July or August.
The radicals are also using the Constitutional Convention as a forum to attack me personally and the administration as well.
When Delegate [Felixberto] Serrano of Batangas stood up to put on record that Delegate [Juan] Liwag had apologized to him for his misquotation. Delegate Aquilino Pimentel of Misamis Oriental castigated him for being a “tuta ni Marcos.”
Some of the delegates like Voltaire Garcia have delivered highly subversive speeches and distributed in Jolo the Ang Bayan, the periodical of the Partido Komunista Ng Pilipinas. I attach a copy of the Ang Bayan so distributed in Jolo.
Gave Imelda two earrings of five diamonds each. She gave me the [Vicente] Manansala paintings (7) of my life hung in the Maharlika Hall temporarily before they are hung in the Marcos Museum.
Attended the Navarro-Garcia wedding at 8:00 AM at Forbes Park church San Antonio. They are the daughter of Cong. [Constantino] Uging Navarro and the son of Dr. ______ Garcia, who was the pathologist who examined my blood and proclaimed me sick of black water fever in 1944, in the Philippine General Hospital.
Then I addressed the Congress of Labor at the Selecta at 10:00 a.m. I was back in Malacañang for the mass and lunch at 11:40 AM.
Golf after a siesta. Then dinner at 8:00 PM.
Talked to Imee at the Claridges in London and Irene who is in the infirmary with a sore throat at St. Leonard at Hastings. Irene will join Imee at London tomorrow.
We hope and pray Irene gets well although she said she is okay and could talk well over the telephone. But she says she contracted the sore throat “in the field” yesterday. Apparently they have been having athletics.
Imee says snow fell last Monday and Tuesday.
They both complain about the food. They say they have no dinner as they are given one principal meal—lunch which is dinner for them and merienda at 5:00 PM.
So we have sent them some fruits although Imee complains about the lack of dinner, Irene says she does not get hungry anymore.
But they all look forward to their weekends out of school.