Set aside 500 hectares of the San Ramon Penal Colony in Zamboanga del Sur for the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization]-UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] $900 million project for the researches on coconut. The briefing indicates the cross-breeding in the Ivory Coast in Africa by FAO shows an increase in yield three to four times.
But Cong. [Constantino] Uging Navarro intervened to complain about cartelization of prices by the big exporters and oil millers who have depressed the buying price from coconut farmers.
I also approved the MIA [Manila International Airport] emergency repairs of the CAA [Civil Aeronautics Administration] which includes an advance delivery of communications equipment from Toshiba before even the contracts are finalized. This will mean an expenditure.
Worked out the RCA [Rice and Corn Administration] requirements for import. Tonight after the Superintendents meeting when I pleaded for a higher commitment to our freedom and democratic institutions, I approved the new forestry rules increasing the forestry charges,
Official Gazette for February 9, 1972: WITH a few scheduled callers, the President started the day early attending to urgent slate papers. In separate actions he:
1) Ordered Commissioner Misael P. Vera of the Bureau of Internal Revenue to make public the latest income tax returns of the top 100 individual and corporate taxpayers in the country;
2) Signed the designations of three officials in the Bureau of Public Schools, and of the acting chairman of the Board of Examiners for Civil Engineers; and
3) Issued a directive requiring that any contract for the reconstruction of the Manila International Airport terminal building should comply with guidelines he spelled out in a similar order we sent to Secretary of Public Works and Communications David Consunji.
Later in the morning, the President disengaged from his desk work to meet officials of the United Nations Development Programme. He discussed with them the projected establishment of a Philippine Coconut Research Institute in the Philippines.
The UNDP is offering to provide the Institute with the equipment needed to train coconut scientists, especially in conducting leaf analyses of all coconut palms to ascertain fertilizer needs.
Senator Emmanuel Pelaez, chairman of the Senate committee on agriculture, accompanied the UNDP officials to Malacañang.
The other UNDP officials in the group were Tom Unwin, Dr. Horst Gueting, and Dr. W. V. D. Pieris. Others in the group were NSDB Chairman Florencio Medina; D. Juan T. Carlos, Jr., Philcorin director; and Miss Cherie Palileo, secretary to the NSDB Board of Trustees.
Another caller of the President was Shinzo Ohya, president of the Teijin (Ltd) of Japan. Ohya informed the President that his company had granted 10 two-year scholarships abroad for Filipino college graduates.
The President thanked Ohya, who is also chairman of the Japan Textile Federation, for the scholarships and assured him that the Department of Education will see to it that only the worthy and most qualified nominees would be chosen for the scholarships.
Ohya was accompanied by his wife, Masako Ohya; Kuniaki Matsumoto, Carlos Palanca, Jr., Jesus Yujuico, P. L. Lim, Yoichi Watanabe and Cesar Concio.