I am now 54 years old as of 12:00 PM
Bongbong left at 8:00 PM tonight. He landed at Bangkok at 11:05 PM.
We met the more than 900 mayors of Visayas and Mindanao.
I signed the new Land Reform Code and its funding.
The meeting with the mayors delegations by province from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM then a break for dinner and my accompanying Bongbong to the airport and a meeting with the Malacañang Press Club. Then I resumed with Imelda at 10:00 PM and finished at 11:45 PM.
Then met with the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce.
Official Gazette for September 10, 1971: PRESIDENT MARCOS signed into law Senate Bill No. 478 (H. No. 3453), providing omnibus amendments to the Agricultural Land Reform Code (R.A. 3844); and Senate Bill No. 633 (H. No. 3463), providing for an Agrarian Land Reform Special Fund.
The signing was done at the Malacañang grounds in the presence of a big group of farmers, including delegations from the Agricultural Cooperative League of the Philippines (ACLP) and the Federation of Free Farmers led by its president, Jeremias Montemayor.
Also present were the First Lady, Imelda R. Marcos, Speaker Cornelio T. Villareal, senators, congressmen, provincial governors, and city and municipal mayors from the Visayas and Mindanao.
In his brief remarks during the ceremony, the President said that the amendments to the Land Reform Code was made in response to the insistent clamor of the nation for a more dynamic land program.
He said that the new laws represent the accumulated experience in the implementation of the Code since its enactment in 1963.
Earlier in the morning, the President met with some 2,500 provincial, city and municipal mayors and other officials from the Visayas and Mindanao, at the Malacañang Maharlika Hall. The President asked the local officials to demonstrate their support for the objectives of the Nacionalista Party in the November elections, such that the “irrevocable fight against communism” would become a deep commitment of the people. The President was swamped with resolutions adopted by provincial boards and municipal councils pledging support to the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Upon the suggestion of the President, the local officials also adopted unanimously a resolution pledging to comply with the provisions of the Electoral Reform Bill (now R.A. 6388) which, the President said, is part of the Nacionalista Party reform program.
Another group, the United Disabled Veterans Association of the Philippines, presented the President with a resolution endorsing the suspension of the writ privilege. In their resolution, the disabled veterans led by Ben S. Florentino, president, said that they “have complete faith and trust in His Excellency, President Marcos, and believe that His Excellency’s decision to suspend the privilege was the result of a dispassionate and careful examination of intelligence documents, facts and evidence which he alone was in a position to assess.”
On the eve of his birthday, the President granted executive clemency to 191 prisoners, upon the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Parole. Of the prisoners extended executive clemency, five were granted absolute pardon, five special absolute pardon, on conditional pardon, with voluntary deportation, 128 conditional pardon with parole conditions, and 5.7 commutation of sentence.
And Imelda greeted me at exactly 12:00 when we retired so I could receive my gifts from her.
The Manila Daily Bulletin today headlined the UPI [United Press International] report of my book “Today’s Revolution: Democracy” quoting extensively from the Introduction and the Epilogue.
This book is now marked by the headline as against Media and Maoism. It will most probably spawn controversies for some time to come.
I wonder, though, if many of those who will discuss it will understand the theory and ideology that I sought to explain in advisedly simple terms in the book. But precisely because it will be hard to comprehend, I may have to write a simpler version of this simple version that came out of the complicated original manuscript.