The children have a party for 20 with Kimpura food at [Bahay] Pangarap. Imelda is with them and I am alone at the State Dining Room watching the movie Eye of the Hurricane while writing my diary. (Imelda just arrived)
Just finished all the paperwork that has piled up with the urgency of the calamity and with the third congressional special session about to end on the 1st of September. We have to prepare some compromise bills in a hurry—on public works to include reconstruction and the authority to borrow, tariff, tax on cigarettes, removal of exemptions and subsidies, amendment of the special highway fund law etc.
This morning I inspected the cementing at Mendiola, Avenida Rizal, J. Abad Santos and M. H. del Pilar—after golf where I scored one under par.
At 12:30 AM [sic] I met Director [Jolly] Bugarin of the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation], Cong. [Eduardo] Cojuangco [Jr.] and Adrian Cristobal.
Col. Bugarin reported the results of the investigations on CAA [Civil Aeronautics Administration] illegal contracts (The Contact contracts for teletype machines: Overpriced and second hand); no witnesses on the Cueto killing by Yabut’s police; the dollars confiscated in the
Official Gazette for August 25, 1972: PRESIDENT MARCOS conferred with leaders of Congress to press for the passage of the important revenue measures still pending in Congress, in view of the proximity of the adjournment of the third special session.
Discussed at the two-hour meeting were the Tariff and Customs Code omnibus amendments, amendment to the tax on cigarettes, removal of all exemptions from taxes or subsidies, public works bill, especially the items for reconstruction and rehabilitation arising out of the flood and other calamities, and amendments to R.A. No. 917 otherwise known as the Special Highways Fund Law.
The President also called attention to the Grain Authority bill, Philippine National Bank bill, Oil Exploration |Bank bill, bills providing sources of fund for the calamity law, bills authorizing borrowings from foreign sources fur the calamity; and the Cooperatives bill.
On the implications of the Supreme Court decision on parity fights, the President and the Congress leaders decided to call an Executive-Legislative meeting after the special session.
Present at the meeting were Senate President Gil J. Puyat, Speaker Cornelio T. Villareal, Senators Arturo M. Tolentino and Lorenzo Teves, House Majority Floorleader Marcelino Veloso; Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor, Jr., Secretaries David M. Consunji of Public Works and Vicente Abad Santos of Justice, Deputy Budget Commissioner Juan Agcaoili, Assistant Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora and others.
At mid-morning, the President went on a three-hour “rib-cracking” drive through Manila, streets, and inspected the rehabilitation work being done by engineers of the Bureau of Public Highways and city engineers, as well.
The President was accompanied by Reps. Joaquin R. Roces and Francisco G. Reyes, and Highways Commissioner Baltazar Aquino.
The President told newsmen later that he would submit to Congress a bill creating a Greater Manila Transport Authority, which he considered a new approach to the transportation problem.
The President devoted the rest of the afternoon and early evening to official papers.
airport should be forfeited; in drugs there is raw intelligence connecting Cong. [Gaudencio] Beduya, [Herminio] Teves and ______ to a heroin refining center in this area. I directed continued surveillance and investigation.
Cong. Cojuangco came to inform me of his success in getting a contract for 40,000 tons of rice from Red China, bartered for cement. I am encouraging barter for rice from Red China so that we do not spend any of our much needed dollars.
Adrian Cristobal came to show me a paper on the ideology of the Free Farmers Federation and their ideologues, the Lakasdiwa headed by former seminarian Ed Garcia (they call father).
Looks sophomoric. But attacks both Maosism and capitalism. And can be used as a basis for study for an acceptable ideology and a program of government.
I place it in Envelope No. XXXIV-O.
This afternoon I met with the congressional leaders, Sen. Pres. [Gil] Puyat, Senate Floor Leader [Arturo] Tolentino, Sen. [Lorenzo] Teves, Acting Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Speaker [Cornelio] Villareal and House Floor Leader Marcelino Veloso. The Senate wants to adjourn after the Tariff and Customs Code and the tax on cigarettes is approved—to meet in the regular session next January. The House wants the Public Works bill, the amendment of RA [Republic Act] 917 at least approved also before adjournment. We are trying to get them to continue working for at least a week more. Specially since there is no money for the calamity appropriations and no authority for borrowing abroad. The Foreign Borrowing Act. RA 6142 limits me to borrowing for projects provided for by law (specially the public works act) and no existing public works act authorizes the reconstruction projects nor some of the on-going projects—ergo we cannot borrow for them.
Thus, there would be no money or cash for the Reconstruction or Rehabilitation Program.
And Congress which is supposed to be controlled by our party would be open to the charge of indolence and impotence to meet the crisis occasioned by the floods.
The rest of the world is helping to rehabilitate us. But Congress wants to adjourn and go junketing abroad—the UN [United Nations], the APU, and conferences that are convenient excuses for a visit to the flesh pots of America and Europe.