At 4:00 PM upon arrival from the airport departure of Thai Prime Minister Thanin Kraivichien, I was able to push through a telephone call through the unreliable Libyan communications system.
USec. [Carmelo] Barbero jubilantly told me that last night at 8:00 PM Libya time which would be 2:00 AM Manila time, immediately after the call of Imelda to Pres. [Muammar] Ghadaffi, he was called to the President’s house where after he explained upon direct inquiry that the term “under sworn in accordance with our constitutional processes” meant a plebiscite, but, upon the query of Pres. Ghadaffi as to whether this included the question of local autonomy, that the question to be answered would be only whether this province or that wanted to belong to one region or another. USec. Barbero farther told Pres. Ghadaffi that since Pres. Marcos had promised to give local autonomy to the Muslim provinces, he was going to do so, but the constitution required the President to ask the people whether they wanted to be in one region or the other.
Pres. Ghaddafi said this was reasonable and directed Minister Al Treki to call the Four Ministers and work out the details the following morning.
So there is an agreement in private with Pres. Ghaddafi who had also informed USec Barbero that he had talked to the First Lady whose appeal apparently did the trick although Pres. Ghaddafi also extended his thanks to me for offering a compromise solution.
And our constitution will be complied with.
What a relief!
I have to explain this too, to the people of the South specially those outside Regions IX and XII like Palawan, Cotabato Sur and Davao [del] Sur.
So I have asked the leaders of the south to stick around Manila until tomorrow so that I can explain what agreement has been entered into.
No Official Gazette entry for this day.