Official Gazette for November 9, 1970: President Marcos inspected the rabbitry, mushroom and silk culture projects of the Mountain Province Development Authority, the stock farm of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and the experimental fruit ‘orchards of the bureau. Accompanied by Undersecretary of Agriculture Arturo Tanco, Jr., MPDA Chairman-Manager Sinai Hamada and BAI Director Pedro Refuerzo, the President first visited the state agricultural college in La Trinidad, where he looked into the progress of the rabbit raising and mushroom and silk culture projects and other projects of the MPDA.
The projects are designed to produce improved farm commodities in large quantities for export; provide additional sources of income for farmers and create a fairly prosperous farmer class in the four mountain provinces, namely: Kalinga-Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao and Mountain Province.
From the state college, the President proceeded to the Bureau of Plant Industry experimental station where improved, varieties of fruit trees are being developed for distribution to farmers. These fruit trees are apples, pears, chestnuts and other fruits which are in great demand locally and are imported in large quantities. The President was shown around the experimental station by Crispin Ancheta, local BPI assistant superintendent.
Then the President metered, down Sto. Tomas road on the opposite section of the city where he visited the Bureau of Animal Industry’s cattle breeding station. He was shown the big imported bulls, which are being kept at the station for breeding purposes in connection with the cattle dispersal program of the government. The President left the guesthouse at 4 p.m.—and was back at the Mansion House at about 6 p.m.
The President earlier worked on official papers brought up by aides from Malacañang. He also issued the following message on the eve of election day: Tomorrow the Filipino nation goes to the polls to elect the men and women who will rewrite the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines. The writing or rewriting of a Constitution is the ultimate, the highest .sovereign act of a people. For the Constitution is the framework, the skeleton of government, and it forecasts the future of a nation. We roust therefore all participate in this sovereign act.
I exhort each and everyone of you to go to the polls and vote tomorrow, I ask you to cast your vote on election day. In urging you to cast your vote, it is perhaps necessary to inform you and remind you that never again during the lifetime of our generation and perhaps the other generations that will follow, will our people he given an opportunity to re-cast and rewrite the Constitution of our country and of our people. It is therefore necessary that we seize and take advantage of this opportunity to mould our own future.
The government and 1 personally view with satisfaction the exemplary manner with which the campaign has been conducted and the way in which all the people and the government officials and employees have conducted themselves in order to maintain a free, open and unsullied expression of the popular will.
I congratulate and commend all those who have unceasingly and unstintingly labored in order that we may have a free and open election. Many have despaired and forecast apprehensions and misgivings on the manner in which this election would be conducted. But despite all of this, the campaign has been peaceful and free. It is my hope that the election on Tuesday—tomorrow—will be equally so. The fear that the campaign would be dominated by political parties or by the influential groups of men that may usually seek to pressure those who make decisions in our society, including the voters in airy election, has not come about. And we are witness to the large presence of many from all the classes of our society, whether rich or poor, big or small, strong or weak, who are candidates and who hope to participate in the proceedings of the constitutional convention. I have no reason to doubt that the general desire and wish of everyone that the constitutional convention will be composed of men who axe-not tied down by partisan interest or committed to any selfish groups, or be subjected to pressures of any kind, will be essentially attained.
But while we are pleased with this development, there remains the duty of government to appeal once more to all the people, and this appeal I make today. I appeal to each and everyone of you, the citizenry of our country, to maintain this election free. The whole world watches us.
I have ordered the Dept. of Justice to obtain evidence of vote-buying and/or excessive expenditure in the campaign by candidates and to prosecute the guilty parties. This followed the news report that Chairman [Jaime] Ferrer of Comelec [Commission on Elections] is said to have charged that there is vote-buying or over-spending in five provinces.
We have to prepare now to write a new electoral code on the basis of our experience in these elections.
I am working on basic policy now that I have been able to temporarily escape from the routine in Manila.
Thus I am reviewing the priorities in government Spending—the allocation of cash and credit.
I must not only reorganize the bureaucracy. I must restudy policy now.
Even our foreign and trade policies must be reviewed.
This will be my work in the next several months before the regular congressional session.
Golf at John Hay; lunch with some bureau directors like Commodore Santiago Nuval (conference on arrastre and Navotas terminal), Sinai Hamada, Dir. [Pedro] Refuerzo and minor officials.
Then inspected the Bureau of Animal Industry Experimental Station (90 hectares), the BPI [Bureau of Plant Indusry] Experimental and Mt. Prov. Dev. projects.
Met Charlie Palanca on copper smelter.
It is not only the Filipino people that looks to you for this act of sovereignty to be attained and for this act of sovereignty to be done with purity and with sincerity. It is the world which watches us. It is a world of friends and of enemies alike, who speculate at the manner in which we will conduct ourselves.
I have trust and confidence in the capability of our people to maintain free and open election as we have done in the past. May we continue to do so tomorrow. Let there be a free and unsullied expression of we popular will.
But first of all, all those who are qualified to vote go to the polls and vote. And when you vote, vote not only for your candidates. Vote for the best qualified of all the candidates that they may truly express the genius, the talent, the patriotism of the people of the Philippines.