Just arrived from Channel 7 interview by Bob Stewart and Leon O. Ty which lasted from 8:00 PM to 10:30 PM on the program “What the People Want to Know.”
Again a free, frank and wide-ranging discussion of the issues including my wealth, dictatorial tendencies, the First Lady’s political ambitions, bankruptcy of the government, the
Official Gazette for October 23, 1971: PRESIDENT MARCOS met anew with Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources Arturo R. Tanco, Jr. and Undersecretary Jose Drilon, Jr., concurrent chairman-general manager of the Rice and Corn Administration on the rice situation throughout the country.
To ensure continuous supply of rice in the Greater Manila area and other parts of the archipelago, the President ordered:
1. Rolling stores in Greater Manila doubled from 106 to about 200;
2. Brig. Gen. Eduardo Garcia, PC chief, to assign one PC trooper to each of the rolling stores to prevent blackmarketing and diversion of the cereal;
3. The Price Control Council to meet with major women’s clubs in order to get some 200 women vigilantes from the private sector who would serve as undercover agents in public markets and report violations to the FCC;
4. The PCC to intensify surveillance of 400 miller-wholesaler bodegas throughout Manila and Central Luzon, padlock bodegas of violators, and prosecute those guilty of hoarding.
5. Secretary Drilon to investigate reports that RCA warehousemen, PNB representatives, and GAO auditors were collecting a tong of PI per bag from retailers withdrawing rice from RCA bodegas.
The President also called a meeting in Malacañang of all 3000 rice retailers in the Greater Manila area, rolling store operators in Luzon and all millers and rice merchants.
During the conference, Secretaries Tanco and Drilon reported that rice prices were down to as much as ₱2.30 and ₱2.50 in South Cotabato, Zamboanga, Negros Occidental, Iloilo and the entire Panay region, the whole of Bicol, and most of Cagayan Valley.
The President directed the Rice and Corn Administration to conduct full-scale price-support (buying) operations in places where palay prices threaten to go below the cost of production to the detriment of the farmers.
Earlier in the day, the President received well-known comedian Danny Kaye, who called at Malacañang to pay his respects following his arrival in the course of a four-week mission of goodwill to 19 countries for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
Before leaving, Kaye promised the President that he would come back in 1972 to hold a concert for the UNICEF and a similar project of the First Lady, Imelda R. Marcos.
Kaye was accompanied to Malacañang by Secretary of Social Welfare Estefania Aldaba-Lim; Paul Edwards, UN information officer m New York; Anthony E. Meager, UNICEF representative in the Philippines, and Wilfred Binns, director of the local UN information center.
On another aspect of UN activities the President announced the completion of a $20 million “Philippine Country Programme Proposal for United Nations Development Programme Assistance” from 1972 to 1976.
In his foreword to the proposal, the President pledged the Philippine Government’s support for the full implementation of the program. He also expressed pride “in the knowledge that with its submission the Philippines becomes one of the first countries to undertake country programming of UNDP assistance.”
The President said “utilization of the assistance will be guided above all by the Government’s keen awareness of the need to combine the highest possible rate of material growth with active promotion of social justice.”
In the evening, the President motored to the DZBB-Channel 7 station in Quezon City, where he was interviewed by Leon O. Ty and Bob Stewart in their “What The People Want To Know” program.
During the question and answer session, the President lengthily discussed subjects ranging from the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to the rice situation. The program lasted from 9 to 10 p.m.
political campaign, prices.
Before that I met with Justice Fred Ruiz Castro and Sen. [Jose] Roy at [Bahay] Pangarap. He suggested a dry run of the briefing to be conducted by the Chief of Staff and Gen. [Fidel] Ramos on Thursday. The dry run will be held on Tuesday at 6:30 PM.
Justice Castro suggested that what I told him that the ultimate aim of the communist movement is to paral[y]ze the will of the ruling class and the people to resist the communist, that [Vladimir] Lenin’s city brigades and Mao Tse Tung’s rural sanctuary as well as Ho Chi Mink’s liquidation of the administrative machinery by the assassination or kidnapping of administrative officials which seems to have been adopted by the Philippines Lenin Maoists Communists be emphasized in the briefing and that the tie up of the 18 provinces and 18 cities still under the suspension of the privilege of the writ be explained.
I have proposed that this explanation be the rural sanctuary that the Maoists are trying to establish in Isabela, Zambales and Camarines Sur.
We shall emphasize the fact that revolution is no longer one swift revolutionary battle but a protracted conflict in which anything that produces social discontent or undermines the faith of the people in their leaders is a tool or weapon of industry.