We are back in Manila. We arrived at Pier 15 at about 4:00 AM. Slept until 15 minutes to 6:00 AM. Tried to sleep some more but could not. We were early for the wedding of Sen. Arturo Tolentino’s daughter arriving at 7:15 when it was set for 7:30 AM and it started at 8:00 AM.
And the typhoon hit us then. The wind must have been about 150 kms. It lasted till about 2:00 PM when we took a nap.
Sen. Gerardo Roxas, the President of the opposition party was a sponsor also of the wedding. He must have felt happy when I preferred him to Ninoy [Benigno] Aquino [Jr.] as presidential candidate. I called Ninoy a mischievous boy and that for the good of the country he must not be a candidate for president.
Imelda went farther. During the breakfast they sat together and she pointedly told him that we would help him win the nomination and that he should get a strong Ilocano or Bicol candidate.
Apparently swallowing everything he has agreed to maintain a liaison with me.
She must have shocked him when she told him that his love, Mrs. Lydia Durano Rodriguez had cried out her secret of their love affair to him. It apparently tickled his ego, she thought, because he kept pinching her wrist, in the playful manner of a fairy.
And he was interested in the jet set friends of Imelda—the Fords and the Rothschilds—“about the age bracket of 30 years when you can proposition them without untoward consequences,” he said. The man is a sex maniac.
I am afraid he will never be president. He does not have the drive for it.
Official Gazette for June 25, 1972: THE PRESIDENT and the First Lady arrived in Manila early in the morning from Pasacao, Camarines Norte, the President’s last stop in his week-long tour of critical areas in the country.
Among his first acts upon arrival at Malacañang was to mobilize national government agencies to help in the evacuation of, and relief operations for, the victims of typhoon “Konsing.”
He directed:
1) The National Disaster Coordinating Center at Camp Aguinaldo to send survey teams to typhoon areas;
2) The armed forces to sent out engineer reconnaissance units to look for roadblocks caused by fallen posts and trees and destroyed bridges, and to remove such roadblocks.
3) The Department of Social Welfare to send food, clothing and medicine to some 300 families who had been evacuated by the AFP from Isla Puting Bato in Tondo to safer places at the height of the typhoon.
4) The Department of Health to be on the lookout for possible outbreaks of epidemic.
5) The Department of Public Works to submit a report on damages to public works and infrastructures so that they could be repaired immediately.
The President attended to urgent paper work in the afternoon.
I issued instructions to Sec. [Carlos] Romulo to seek the reorientation of Seato [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization] in the Ministers conference in Caberra [sic] this 27th. I attach the copy of the instructions.
Ambassador [Roberto] Benedicto reported on the Consultative Group meeting in Tokyo and developments in Japan.
Yesterday in Pasacao Col. Nicanor Jimenez, Gen. Manager of the PNR [Philippine National Railways] and whose sister is married to a Quintero (the brother of Vice Mayor Quintero) told me that Delegate [Eduardo] Quintero wants to raise the white flag and wants to negotiate. I told him all we wanted Quintero to do was tell the truth. Nick sees me Monday at 10:00 AM.