Last night at 7:00 PM, at the instance of the Solicitor General, the Supreme Court issued a restraining order against the oil companies to restrain them from raising their prices before the Oil Industry Commission considers the matter and holds the hearings required for a determination of a reasonable and justifiable increase.
The oil companies through Mr. Wallahan [J. J. Wolohan] of Caltex and Mr. Massey of Shell came to see me. They seem to think that we should protect them in their effort to make money. They have to learn to take care of themselves. The government cannot be baby sitting for such big monopolies.
Official Gazette for July 7, 1971: President Marcos had a series of conferences with congressmen, being Congressmen’s Day at Malacañang, mostly on problems and requirements of the solons’ constituencies.
The President, in the course of his meeting with them, appealed to some 30 congressmen to push through the passage of vital administration measures, particularly on land reform and electoral reform, before the end of the special session. He had called Congress to a 30-days special session, certifying four urgent measures on land reform, electoral reform, the budget, and a new Election Code. With the extra session ending on July 17, the President expressed grave concern over the still unacted measures pending before both Houses of Congress. Apart from these meetings, the President had conferences with various executive department officials on current problems of the country, notably on the threatened spiral of commodity prices. In this connection, he took steps to stem increases in the prices of food, such as livestock meat and poultry products, by declaring the Greater Manila Terminal Food Market a national abbatoir.
The President also ordered several government agencies to launch a massive production program as the best way of preventing an increase in prices and of improving the earning capacity of the people. He issued the directive during his conference with Rosendo Marquez, officer-in-charge of the PACD; NACIDA Administrator Mario Reyes, and Bureau of Fisheries Commissioner Andres Mane. The President told the agencies concerned, including the Bureaus of Animal Industry and Plant Industry, to redouble their efforts toward attaining peak production because this is the best way to stop rising prices.
He also called to a separate conference on the progress of the workers’ housing program, GSIS General Manager Roman Cruz, Jr. and SSS Administrator Gilberto Teodoro to Malacañang. Notable among the President’s other callers was Taiwan solon Mah Su Lay, a member of the Legislative Yuan of that Republic, who paid a courtesy call. The Chinese legislator was here in the course of a survey of Southeast Asian countries.
Earlier, the President directed the Department of Foreign Affairs to explore new markets abroad for Philippine logs, one of the nation’s biggest dollar-earning products. Upon the recommendation of the Presidential Committee on Wood Industries Development, the President instructed Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Romulo to utilize diplomatic posts abroad for the purpose of sounding out foreign countries interested in buying Philippine lumber, “regardless of ideology.” Members of the committee called on the President to submit their report and recommendations on the improvement of forestry operations, including the reorganization of the resources and activities of the Bureau of Forestry, the assessment and reorientation of present policies and the adoption of an integrated and basically export-oriented wood industry development plan.
Headed by Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources Arturo Tanco, Jr., chairman; members of the presidential committee who attended the Palace meeting included Florencio Tamesis of the Society of Filipino Foresters, Jose Sanvictores of the Philippine Association for Permanent Forests, Nicolas Lansigan and Renato Arevalo of the Philippine Lumber Producers Association and Apolinario Dionilio of the Philippine Chamber of Wood Industries.
There was an alarm over an article of July 6th in the Journal of Commerce in New York by Muriel Allen which claims that members of the 21-man committee of Senator [Russell] Long were preparing to cut the Philippine share in the deficits of other countries from the 37% it had been reduced to from the original 47% to 26%, as well as to cut our basic quota.
Ambassador [Henry] Byroade when I talked to him over the matter by telephone immediately communicated with the State Department and the spokesman on the sugar question, Mr. Katz, said there was no basis for the story.
When I talked to Frank Valeo, the Secretary of the Senate, I found Frank discouraging any direct contact by Kokoy [Benjamin] Romualdez whom I have sent this afternoon at 5:00 PM to the U.S., with the senators other than Sen. Mansfield.
Then the price of logs have gone down by as much as $5 a cubic meter. This was due to the over supply of logs from Indonesia, Japan and Korea are lowering purchase prices.
We will try to organize Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines into a combine of suppliers to keep the prices up.
Then we can reduce the production of logs in the Philippines so that these logs which are used for force sheets in plywood would be on demand.
The reduction of prices may mean a loss of $35 million of dollar earnings of the country.
Between sugar and logs we may have another imbalance in our international trade.
Sec. Juan Ponce Enrile came to tell me that Time magazine has sent feelers through Atty. Ike Belo for a settlement of the libel case I filed against them.
I have informed my lawyers, specially Atty. Crispin Baizas whom I met tonight, that I cannot settle the case out of court as the case was filed to protect and defend the honor, dignity and good name of our country and people.
A settlement is out of the question.
There is a lot of P20 counterfeit currency being circulated in the Philippines. I have directed the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] to take aggressive steps to stop it and punish the persons guilty of this crime.
This could be a part of the communist plot to destroy our economy by debauching our
New York times, July 2, 1971 reported that the Manila office of Time Magazine was padlocked by a Manila sheriff after an inventory of its contents pending a libel suit filed against time by Marcos for PHP50 million or USD8.3M. The April 12, 1971 issue carried a story The Philippines:Prescription to Revolution that Marcos said: “ asserted that he was the richest man in Asia, had insinuated that he had bought delegates to the Constitutional Convention to suit his political ends, and had linked him with an American movie actress.”
currency.