Met with about 2,000 Land Reform or Dept. Agrarian Reform Field Technicians. I have directed the DAR to generate 3,000 Field Technicians and the APC [Agricultural Productivity Commission] and BPI [Bureau of Plant Industry] to generate 6,000 Field Technicians so that there would be 9,000 technicians for the 715,000 tenants to be serviced.
I have about P50 million for the organization of cooperatives and loans to them. Sec. [Alejandro] Melchor [Jr.] told me this morning before the conference that the AID [Agency for International Development] is ready to raise $50 million for land reform. I would put it into the Land Ownership financing.
So I have set the guidelines for acquisition of land for the tenants.
Then I met the Catholic bishops who explained the second letter which expressed reservations about martial law and my decrees was signed by 17 bishops most of whom were misled into thinking they signed the first resolution of support.
Tonight I met Sec. [Vicente] Abad Santos and Sol. Gen. Estelito Mendoza on the dismissal of CFI [Court of First Instance] and CAR [Court of Agrarian Relations] judges. They also took up the attitude of the Supreme Court justices which has turned for the better.
And authorized the new newspaper—Herald Tribune, the conversion of the Government Report into a weekly magazine.
No Official Gazette entry for this day.