[p.39] Imelda is strong enough to play host to her crowd nightly. We have just eaten Chinese lugao and lumpia brought in by Joe and Betty Campos. I liked most the bajo or powdered beef tapa and the seaweed for the lumpia. It is now 11:00 PM. Last night we went to bed at 11:30 PM. Read De Gaulle’s war memoirs up to 1:30 PM after writing my diary.
I must soon write my war memoirs while the events are still fresh in my mind.
Met with the fiscal policy committee at 8:00 AM here in the hospital and gave instructions to Com. [Faustino] Sychangco and Gov. [Gregorio] Licaros to reconcile the
Official Gazette for January 19, 1970: President Marcos started his day with a meeting early in the morning with his fiscal policy advisers at the Veterans Memorial Hospital, before coming to Malacañang where he received callers and worked on state papers. Topping the list of callers was Ambassador John Mansfield Addis of the United Kingdom, who paid a farewell call prior to his departure for London Thursday for a new assignment. A group of 138 Filipino teachers also paid a farewell call, on the eve of their departure for Addis Ababa to fulfill a three-year teaching-contract with the Ethiopian government. The group was accompanied by Pompeyo Gregorio of the Department of Education. In connection with the teachers’ call, the President directed Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Romulo to make a study on the redeployment of Philippine diplomatic missions, particularly to African countries where many Filipinos are residing.
In other separate actions the President: 1. Ordered the investigation and cancellation of mining concessions granted to mining companies which are not capable of developing them but secured them merely for speculative purposes. 2. Signed a proclamation declaring the period from January 24 to 31 this year as National Securities-Investment Consciousness Week. 3. Summoned Civil Service Commissioner Abelardo Subido to appear at Malacañang in connection with his demanded resignation from his post.
The President also gave an interview to Burt Hoffman, of the Washington Star, who was accompanied by Amando Doronila of the Daily Mirror, who is also the Philippine correspondent of the American publication.
The fiscal policy meeting in the morning was held at the Presidential Suite of the VMH, where the President spent the night. At the meeting were Budget Commissioner Faustino Sy-Changco, Central Bank Gov. Gregorio Licaros, Chairman Cesar E. A.Virata of the Board of Investments, PNB President Roberto Benedicto, General Manager Benjamin del Rosario of the GSIS, PES Director-General Placido Mapa, Jr., SSS Administrator Gilberto Teodoro, and Presidential Executive Assistant Jacobo C. Clave. The President directed Commissioner Sy-Changco to prepare and implement balanced budgets during the next four fiscal years and to take steps to generate a surplus in order to reduce the deficit incurred by the government during the first six months.
In a speech read for him in the morning by Secretary of Health Amadeo Cruz before the 9th World Congress of the International Committee of Catholic Nurses, the President paid tribute to the average nurse whose dedication and devotion to work is almost a universal trait among nurses the world over. “If only we can approximate the devotion of the average nurse to her work,” the President said, “then perhaps men and nations will attain the higher goals that they conceive.” The President expressed the hope that one day, “Filipinos shall become a race of devoted workers, not working for themselves alone but for all their fellows, including those generations yet to come.”
figures on government deficits. The Central Bank has the figures at P1.1 billion cash deficit. Com. Sychangco says the cash deficit is only P600 million with savings of P283 million.
I also ordered Gov. Licaros to put down in a formal Aide Memoire to be handed to the IMF consultative committee our position that we will not agree to a devaluation and will take any measures short of it; and to include the stabilization measures we have adopted including the allowance of the establishment of dollar accounts in Philippine banks with 100% dollar backing and to allow hotels to keep 25% of their dollar earnings because right now the dollar earnings of hotels has gone down to zero.
I met with [Alfredo] Piding Montelibano [Sr.] who was brought to [Bahay] Pangarap by [Roberto] Bobby Benedicto. He has just recovered from the flu which is all over Europe and Asia.
[p.40] We must now develop rural electrification under the new law passed last year and Schools of Arts and Trades. The British ambassador who came to say good-bye also seems to agree these will bring about development faster.
Incidentally, Col. [Fabian] Ver reports to me that [Eleuterio] Terry Adevoso, the mastermind of the assassination and military take over of the government, informed the conferees of the junta in their meeting at the house of Commodore [Ramon] Alcaraz that the Vice President or the Lopez group has its own liquidation plot for me. I must look into this more deeply.
I intend to have the EEA cases filed against Adevoso and Emmanuel Ocampo, his operations man, to keep them occupied. But at the same time we must obtain evidence for the filing of a case of conspiracy to commit treason. Apparently included in the plot is Col. Patterson, the U.S. Embassy military attaché or so Adevoso says. Terry Adevoso said that he spoke to Ambassador [Henry] Byroade about their plot and while the ambassador was defending me he said that if he (Adevoso) had anything to ask or tell him, he (Adevoso) should talk to Patterson. Adevoso said that it was Patterson who suggested that Ayala and Nagtahan Bridges should be blown up so as to isolate Malacañang Palace during the attack.
Included in the plot are Alcaraz, David Pelayo, Capt. Acosta of the Navy.
Their target date is June or July this year.
Official Gazette says FM went to Veterans Hospital on the afternoon of the 17th, but diary entry from the 16th is written in the Hospital.