1:00 AM
August 23, 1971
There are repeated suggestions that I now impose martial law. For as of now no progress seems to have been made on the investigation of the LP [Liberal Party] rally bombing Sens. Sergio Osmeña [Jr.] and Jovito Salonga are still fighting for their lives. It seems that Salonga has suffered an eye and brain damage while Osmeña has shrapnel in the lungs.
Of course the partisans of the LP keep blaming me for not being able to maintain peace and order or for being indirectly responsible for the bombing, how, they do not say.
But the great majority blame the subversives for it and say I should have eliminated them as early as 1970.
As of now only seven of the listed target personalities have been arrested. I attach the list.
We had a luncheon with Sec. [Carlos] Romulo, Sec. [Vicente] Abad Santos, Sec. [Juan] Ponce Enrile, Kits [Francisco] Tatad, Sol. Gen. Felix Antonio, Gen. [Mariano] Ordoñez, Gen. [Eduardo] Garcia in which we discussed the proclamation suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Romulo was also all for it.
We have been waiting for developments. And in the meantime I have ordered a moratorium on the campaign of the senatorial candidates.
And I have ordered an intensive investigation on Sen. Ninoy [Benigno] Aquino [Jr.] whom everybody is beginning to suspect with his many controversial versions of why he was not in the rally during the bombing.
I have also asked Sen. [Jose] Roy to meet with the LP President Gerry [Gerardo] Roxas so that they could agree on the plan to suspend the political campaign. But he met with Ninoy Aquino only then called me up to ask if I was planning to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. This confirming the fact that he may have an understanding with Ninoy Aquino as he let his nephew run as a Vice Governor in Tarlac.
This also probably means that he and Ninoy talked of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and Ninoy requested Roy to ask me to desist.
Official Gazette for August 22, 1971: President Marcos spent most of his time working on official papers in his private study, and attending to other urgent state business. Among other actions, the President ordered a moratorium on the campaign of the Nacionalista Party senatorial ticket following the Plaza Miranda bomb attack, until the two political parties have met and decided “what should be done under the circumstances.”
The President said “democracy as a way of life, rather than the Liberal Party candidates, was the object of the bomb attack at Plaza Miranda, and it is now time for the two parties to meet and decide how this naked attack shall be met.”