Have been busy the whole day. Early visitors and early golf. More visitors. Mass at 11:00 AM.
Labor meeting at 12:00 AM [sic] at the Winter Garden with the Pinagbuklod Ng Mga Mangagawa [sic] Pilipino. Theme I followed was unity of labor.
Then set the Vanguard (UP [University of the Philippines]) meeting at 4:00 PM.
At 6:30 PM took the PCF [Patrol Craft Fast] No. 7 for Malacañang and more visitors.
Worked up to 11:00 PM on the financing of priority projects specially the damaged roads.
Official Gazette for March 5, 1972: AS IN the day previous, the President alternately worked in his study and fulfilled his speaking engagement with the country’s labor groups affiliated with the organization called Pinagbuklod ng Manggagawang Pilipino.
While in his usual early morning chore of acting on pending state papers, the President signed an executive order creating the Manila International Airport Rehabilitation and Improvement Committee.
The President was guest speaker at noontime at the first biennial anniversary convention of the Pinagbuklod ng Manggagawang Pilipino, held at the Manila Hotel. The Chief Executive deplored the apparent division and fragmentation of the labor ranks which prevent them from being heard, not only on matters that affect them but on the more vital issues that concern every Filipino.
Labor Secretary Adrian Cristobal introduced the President to the labor delegates.
The president was back at Malacañang early in the afternoon. As it was the start of Press Week observance in the country, the President, issued the following statement:
“Amid misunderstandings and confusions, the Press must continue to sift the facts from unverified data, the significant from the merely sensational, the essential from the artificial, and interpret things true and things false according to their real nature. In the conduct of government it must continue to act as the vigilant watchdog, but must never pass up any opportunity for constructive advice. Within society and within itself, it must remain society’s foremost critic and its own, too, so that it may always comport itself with excellence.”
The Chief Executive worked on his desk uninterruptedly until late evening.