After a one-hour and a half caucus last night (7:00-8:30) while the Batasang Bayan was willing to pass some kind of enabling act on elections of my choice, I decided that we should sleep on the problem of how and when to hold elections although I was as of last night of the opinion that we should consult the barangays informally through the Department of Local Government and Community Development then hold the elections in January 1977 with the barangays being the nominating bodies and a direct vote of the people guaranteed.
This morning I held another caucus from 9:30 to 11:00 AM. There were only a few changes. The period of informal consultation of the DLGCD with the barangays is elastic, so the deadline of December 31 , 1976 for the report to the President was removed and the elections to be held not later than February.
It was agreed at my instance that if there should be nothing that would disturb this decision the Batasang Bayan would not meet anymore. However if there are developments that should change the decision, I would call another session in January.
We passed a simple resolution without the date of election, the form of election and time being left to the President.
No Official Gazette entry for this day.