Archbishop Jaime Sin and Cardinal [Julio] Rosales met with me this morning. Archbishop Sin was almost apologetic for his almost condemnatory letter which will be read in the churches and in the vigil at 3:00 PM tomorrow. But I am disappointed in him. He has merely bowed to the importunings of the more radical among his congregation. He does not seem to understand the greater imperative of civil order.
It would be poetic justice of disorders were to follow his public outcry of injustice and unfairness. And the church the first victim.
He seemed to sober up when I called attention to the possible consequences of disorder.
If this builds up notwithstanding the assumption of responsibility of the incident by Sec. Juan Ponce Enrile, then there has to be a new approach.
We have to organize a civilian counter-foil to meet the threat of the Church and other similar non-violent or non-military groups. An organization of peasants like the Masaka has to be built up.
Official Gazette for August 31, 1974: THE PRESIDENT met with National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) board and heard representatives of coconut farmers and other sectors of the industry on their petition either to lift controls on trading or reassess the ceiling price set for exports, to make it “more responsive” to world trade developments and to allow copra trading to resume. It has allegedly stopped almost completely. Acting on the reports submitted by the representatives of coconut farmers and other sectors of the industry, the President immediately directed NEDA to assess the situation and take steps to protect farmer-producers and to ensure increased dollar earnings by allowing continuous trading and exports of copra and coconut oil. In its three-and-a-half hour meeting, following the guidelines set by the President, the NEDA board took the following steps: 1) Adopted a flexible price policy. The NEDA board agreed to scrap fixed export and domestic floor prices which were established earlier this month to guarantee continuity of exports and thus protect the reputation of the Philippines as reliable supplier. 2) Approved measures to help farmer-producers. The NEDA authorized the Philippine National Bank to enter into copra-purchasing operations working closely with the 877 town chapters of the Philippine Coconut Producers Federation to replace the domestic floor-price mechanism and maintain reasonable prices to farmer-producers. However, the PNB operations should not completely replace traders and exporters of the private sector.
DEPARTMENT of Agriculture said that the country’s export earnings from fresh bananas during the first seven months of the current year totaled P154.6 million, exceeding by 77.2 percent of the export receipts recorded for the same period last year. In a report submitted to Secretary of Agriculture Arturo R. Tanco Jr., Acting Director Bernardo Castillo of the Bureau of Plant Industry said that from January to July this year the Philippines exported fresh bananas worth P154.6 million to Japan. This figure is P69 million more than the last year’s level of only P87 million. Because of this favorable trend, BPI officials predicted that this year’s foreign exchange earnings from fresh bananas would far exceed that of last year. The Philippines is now the biggest supplier of fresh bananas to Japan, Ecuador and Taiwan are second and third respectively.