2:00 AM
November 9, 1971
The initial reports of the voting indicate a possible debacle of the Na[c]ionalista senatorial candidates. The cities and urban centers have all voted straight Liberal in general. The rural areas while still awaited may show a split vote.
So the best the Nacionalista senators may get may be three or two out of the eight.
For two years now we have been the subject of criticism, bitter and vicious, by all the newspapers and other media. False news as well as slanted reporting was a consistent pattern of the last two years.
And we had no way of answering. Our efforts to do so were late and ineffectual.
In the provinces, the radio and TV news monopolized by our critics.
Then came the rice shortage, the increase of prices and Plaza Miranda with its bombing.
And the concocted stories of corruption like the Buhda [Buddha] case as well as fraud like the alleged false ballots in the C-47 that crashed in Mactan.
However, our local candidates seem, to be winning. Which shows that the national issues
Official Gazette for November 8, 1971: PRESIDENT MARCOS left Malacañang at 8 a.m. for the Manila International Airport where he boarded a light plane for his hometown of Batac to vote.
As in previous years, the President cast his vote at the town’s Precinct No. 11-A, located in a small industrial shop of the Batac Central Elementary School, across the street from the Marcos’ residence.
He was assigned Ballot No. 3777 and was the. 72nd elector to cast his vote, out of a total 154 voters registered in the precinct.
Interviewed by media men upon emerging from the polling place, the President said that every election, especially after being elected to public office, he had taken every available means of transportation to reach his hometown, regardless of where he happened to be at the time.
He said he would like to hold it as a symbol for the Filipino people to appreciate the value of the right to vote.
Landing at the Gabu airport in Laoag at 9:35 a.in. aboard a light “Kingaire” plane, the President was met by local leaders headed by Gov. Elizabeth Marcos-Keon, Reps. Roque Ablan, Jr. and Simeon Valdez, Laoag City Mayor Eulalio Siazon and Mayor Feliciano Asuncion of Batac.
From the airport, the President motored direct to Batac, some 17 kilometers away, and upon arrival, he first dropped at the town church to offer a brief prayer, a ritual he had followed for years before proceeding to the nearby schoolhouse to vote.
The President was in the polling place for 10 minutes. With him was his mother, Mrs. Josefa Edralin-Marcos, who was assigned the next ballot, No. 3778. The President was listed down as No. 13 in the voters’ registry and his mother No. 14.
The President was back in Malacañang at 2 p.m. After a belated lunch, the President rested briefly and then worked on official papers in his private study.
Toward evening, the President followed the trend of voting as reported by various television election programs.
of prices, rice and Plaza Miranda were effective against the national candidates—and the local candidates not held jointly liable for them.
It may also indicate that the activists and subversives have obtained the support of the affluent as well as the lower class.
So we must now fear for a growing strength of the subversives that will be shown in various violent ways in the future.
They may now become over-grasping and force a showdown of force or slowly peck at the strength of the government and thus cause it to waste away in indecisive battles of attrition.
For one thing we must now prepare for the violence in action of the communists who will be encouraged and continued spite of the political opposition and the oligarchs who have tasted first blood.