The bedroom is topsy-turvy from the children horsing around with me looking like a clown with a thinking cap (badly fitted, too small) on the head, a shirt too long for me both from Bongbong and clowning to beat the circus while Imelda presides over the unlikely proceedings with an openly admiring smile as she sits up in bed in her nightgown.
For Bongbong has just arrived (7:15 PM) by SAS [Scandinavian Airlines] from Bangkok. Actually several hours late as his plane was scheduled to land at 6:15 PM. And we are one big happy family.
Some of the cousins are sleeping in the “downtown bed” (carryover from Irene’s baby terminology and which means the floor where they have spread their mattresses.
Pres. [Richard] Nixon is going to Red China as the guest of the People’s Republic of China and his chief foreign policy advisers, [Henry] Kissinger, visited Peking as the guest of Chou En Lai July 9-11th. This was announced this morning.
Official Gazette for July 16, 1971: President Marcos directed General Manager Roman Cruz, Jr. of the government Service Insurance System to make certain that sites for the massive workers’ housing program will be suitable for the purposes of the program. The President told General Manager Cruz that the criteria for selecting sites for the workers’ housing projects are: 1.The land should be located within a radius of 50 kilometers from Manila. 2.The area should be close to main roads and highways. 3.The value of the land should be within reasonable reach of the working man.
In other directives issued during the day, the President asked Commissioner of Public Highways Baltazar Aquino to review the entire road-building program and to expedite completion of on-going constructions. In his conference with the GSIS official in the morning the President emphasized that most of the homeless workers eyed by the government as beneficiaries of the housing program work in the Greater Manila area and send their children to schools in Manila. For this reason, the President said, it would be impractical to locate housing projects far from the city, both from the standpoint of economy as well as convenience.
The President added that many housing projects and subdivisions are in out-of-the-way places necessitating special arrangements for transportation facilities. For this reason, he said, housing projects should be within at least walking distance from highways and main roads.
The President issued the directive to Commissioner Aquino upon receipt of complaints from a number of groups of citizens and officials in the provinces on the bad condition of their roads, especially after the typhoons and incessants rains had done their worst. Among those who complained of poor roads to the President were Gov. Jose C. Estevez of Albay, who was accompanied by Reps. Roberto M. Sabido, Carlos R. Imperial and Amando D. Cope; Gov. Amado B. Almazan of Kalinga-Apayao; and Rep. David M. Puzon of Cagayan.
Earlier, the President received the report of Secretary of Finance Cesar E. A. Virata on the progress of negotiations for the US $65 million long-term loan from Japan. Virata said that a statement was initialled in Tokyo declaring that the Japanese government would extend a loan on a concessionary basis to the Philippine government in the amount of $65 million. The statement was initialled by BOI Chairman Vicente Paterno and Central Bank Deputy Governor Amado Briñas for the Philippines, and by Ambassador Sawaki for the Japanese government.
The loan would be as follows: $40 million as commodity loan, and $25 million as project loan.
Virata said the loan would be extended at three-and-a-half percent interest, with a grace period of seven years. After the grace period, it may be paid in 13 years, thus allowing a total of 20 years.
Everybody seems to think that I knew all of those as two days ago in my Aspac [Asian and Pacific Council] speech I had asked for more flexibility among the nuclear powers and hoped that the threat of nuclear revanche would be decreased by a more positive reaction to Red China’s offer to a destruction of nuclear weapons—specifically proposing that the U.S. and China reach mutually viable basis for understanding.
This is indeed the beginning of a new era as I said in the toast to the success of Aspac tonight. It is an era of flexibility and of great decisions.
I am happy to belong to it.