Today I met the Jacintos with Sec. Cesar Virata, [Leonides] Leo Virata and BOI [Board of Investments] Chairman [Vicente] Ting Paterno to settle the $70 million guaranty for their raw materials and the blast furnace for their smelter.
Everything pivots on the organization of the management committee in which [Eduardo] Eddie Rodriguez would be a member.
The Jacintos have agreed to put a comptroller to be chosen by the DBP [Development Bank of the Philippines], in this case a certain Dominguez.
They met this afternoon to settle the details.
Tonight I ordered a meeting of RCA [Rice and Corn Administration] Chairman [Alfredo] Piding Montelibano [Sr.], Bureau of Commerce Director [Epifanio] Castillejos (the two immediately tore into each other like cats and dogs, with Dir. Castillejos standing up to Piding and calling him inefficient), Sec. [Ernesto] Maceda and Sec. [Arturo] Tanco [Jr.].
I ordered that the Sec. of Commerce using his powers in an emergency caused by calamity start confiscating rice from the bonded warehouse owners who owed the RCA rice. The total indebtedness is 5.1 million cavans of rice and 700,000 cavans of corn.
Official Gazette for March 8, 1971: PRESIDENT MARCOS devoted his time to his desk work, among other concerns named the Philippine panel to negotiate the agricultural commodities agreement under US Public Law 480 with the US government; designated National Historical Commission Chairman Carmen Guerrero Nakpil to head the Historical Documents Committee, vice Secretary of Education Onofre D. Corpuz, who gave up the chairmanship because of the pressure of work in his own department; and ordered the strict enforcement of the policy making Virginia tobacco purchase deals in public and at the designated trading centers.
The President received only one caller, Gordon E. Jones and his wife, who paid a courtesy call. Jones is board chairman of the IBM World Trade Corp. He arrived in Manila to formally install Raimerio O. Reyes as manager of the IBM company in the Philippines, the first Filipino to take charge of an IBM firm. Jones said that it is the IBM policy to turn over control of IBM offices in various parts of the world to local citizens.
The rest of the workday was devoted by the President to his desk work, during which he signed the promotional appointments of three special attorneys in the Office of the Agrarian Counsel (OTAC), designated eight individuals as acting members of the board of directors of the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB), and appointed a city treasurer for Gingoog City.
Promoted in the OTAC were Amado B. Castaño, from senior special attorney to supervising special attorney; Salvacion G. Birco, from special attorney to senior special attorney, vice Castaño; and Ana Bon-Uy, from legal officer to special attorney.
Designated acting board members of the PVB were Agustin Marking, Alejo S. Santos, Jaime S. Mejia, Benjamin S. Florentino, Generoso Salazar, Alfredo C. Gray, Moises A. Maramba, Sr. and Alfonso V. Arellano.
Appointed treasurer of Gingoog City was Iligan City assistant treasurer Wilfredo J. Cabili.
I ordered that at least 2 million be recovered and kept as reserve stock except those going to the Visayas and Mindanao.
Imelda, at dinner tonight, recounted how I often said, “I should have died a long time ago, but God must have saved me to accomplish a mission.”
And so the stories on how clairvoyance had saved me—the choice at a junction as to which road to take; the incident at Hermosa and Layne junction when Priming San Agustin was wounded and I thought he was my brother, Paking (Pacifico); the feeling that I was going to be hit when l was wounded; the incident at Kiangan of the ghost battalion under Maj. Dumlao that saved us.
And the strange capacity to receive messages (mental telepathy) when grandfather died and I told father this (we were in Davao and grandfather was in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, about 1,500 miles away) before we knew of it and was confirmed the following day by a telegram.
Then the separation of my spirit from my body on occasions of extreme pain.
What mission run I supposed to perform now for our country and people. It seems simple enough now that the danger from the communists has surfaced.
“Nobody else can save us,” Huang Yulo who was brought by Joe Campos to tell me of Chinese Yoga, kept repeating as the conclusion of all the people he talks to.