PAL [Philippine Air Lines] may have another strike as they have fired [Felix] Gaston, the President of the pilots association and are screening the employees for their refusal to return to work immediately. Called up [Rafael] Ygoa and he says that they will take back all the employees but not Gaston as he refused to fly his first flight to Hawaii.
Official Gazette, October 29, 1970: The President received many callers and held conferences with a number of officials on various matters. Ramon Gaviola, chairman of the Social Security System, was among the first to see the President, to submit his report on the recently concluded 17th General Assembly of the International Social Security Association in Cologne, Germany, as Philippine representative. Gaviola had presided over the assembly after being elected vice president of the world organization. He was also reelected member of the 18-man governing body representing Asia and Oceania.
In the morning, the President conferred with three mayors from Cotabato who reported on the peace and order situation in their localities. The mayors were Esteban Doruelo of Pigkawayan, Nicolas Dequiña of Midsayap and Jose Escribano of Tacurong. Then the President received G.S.R.B. Kobbekaduwa, minister of agriculture and land of Ceylon, who called to pay his respects, following his recent arrival in Manila for a few days visit. The President also conferred with Julian Yballe, assistant director of the Bureau of Private Schools, whom he designated acting director of that bureau to fill the post vacated by Narciso Albarracin who was named undersecretary of education.
Early in the afternoon, the President was interviewed by Poui S. Neilsen, foreign editor of the Denmark newspaper Intelligensia, and correspondent of that country’s state-owned radio-TV network. Other callers included Reps. Ali Dimaporo of Lanao del Norte, Eduardo Cojuangco of Tarlac, Alfredo Lamen of Mt. Province, Felipe Abrigo of Eastern Samar and Fermin Caram, Jr. of Iloilo; Governors Victor Masa of Eastern Samar and Nicolas Pardo of Camarines Norte, and Mayor Florencio Bernabe of Parañaque, Rizal.
The President instructed the Department of Social Welfare and People’s Homesite and Housing Corporation to jointly look into the possibility of allocating a site for a workshop and an’ office center of the General Assembly of the Blind, Inc. The society’s request was conveyed to the President through Acting Executive Secretary Roberto V. Reyes, before whom the new officers of the GABI headed by Celso Jamora took their oath of office.
The President also ordered an immediate study of the economic uses bakawan, a local forest product with an eye to solving the dispute over the product between local entrepreneurs and log exporters.
A committee, headed by Chairman Johnny M. Araneta of the National Export Coordinating Center, will conduct the studies and report their findings to the President.
In the course of the day, the President issued an executive order establishing a Presidential Award in Education to be granted to citizens who have made significant and distinctive contributions to education in this country. Creation of the presidential award was proposed by the national committee in charge of the observance of the International Education Year and subsequently recommended for approval by Secretary of Education Onofre D. Corpuz. Presentation of the award will be one of the highlights of the observance in the Philippines of the International Education Year this year, which was declared by the United Nations General Assembly to focus attention of member countries on the important role of education in the development of human resources, deemed essential to the attainment of the goals of the Second UN Development Decade. In issuing the executive order establishing the award, President Marcos underscored the universal recognition of the value of education in promoting a country’s enlightenment and progress, as well as world peace and understanding.
I have asked DBP [Development Bank of the Philippines] and Central Bank to study the natural gas project for electricity in Isabela. The Stanvac report estimates the natural gas deposit of Isabela at 2.8 billion and can last 30 years but confidential reports indicate in may be 50 billion. The Isabela Gas and Power is setting up a [sic] electric complex of $9 million for five towns, several factories and logging and processing factories.
We have had to tell the political leaders that we are not spending any funds in these elections. They cannot get used to the idea. But we must try it and push through the election reforms.
Fortune teller Shra Shi Singh insisted in coming in to see me at the palace to tell me of his forecast of peace and prosperity of the country and greatness and health for me up to at least 85 years old. I hope the media does not pick that up and blow it up into a story that I am consulting astrologers and horoscopists before I make decisions for government.
[Newbold] Noyes, the editor of the Washington Star, called on me for an interview yesterday. He seemed to have misgivings about our future.
The management and administration of the private universities are planning to close their institutions if the demonstrations continue.
The FFF [Federation of Free Farmers] announced today that they are demonstrating Saturday before the palace. They are as usual making it appear that I am calling the conference (confrontation) with Vic Abad Santos because of their demonstration. Which is not true as I decided on the confrontation before their announcement of a demonstration.
Comelec [Commission on Elections] Chairman [Jaime] Ferrer has just announced that after his tour of the provinces, he believes 200 independents will win and about 150 politically supported candidates will be elected, 50 of them relatives of politicians in power. He is way off because 80% of the candidates are supported by politicians. But probably it is best that he made the announcement.
Met with Gens. [Eduardo] Garcia and [Manuel] Yan—the first on the Cotabato situation, with the mayors of Pigcawayan, Tacurong and Midsayap who all testify that the groups of Udtong Matalam, the Sinsuats and Abdullah Sangki are parading their men
Marcos died in 1989 at 72, disgraced, sick and in exile in Hawaii.
It was common knowledge that the Marcoses hedged their bets: consulting fortune tellers, believing in numerology (all important decisions or events had to be in a date divisible by seven), feng shui (in design elements made during the renovation of Malacañang and the Presidential Seal), or that Marcos had an anting-anting, referenced in his diary. The most famous of the Palace seers was a certain “Ronald Joaquin Marcos” the so-called “Bionic Boy” who could read minds, write on paper without touching a pen to it or calling overseas with a Toy Phone. The “Bionic Boy” is not an urban legend, the editor met him twice or thrice in Pampanga and is witness to his psychic feats.
with firearms and the Christians are also beginning to prepare for violence. The secession movement, they claim, is serious and Udtog Matalam is serious.
I have ordered them disarmed—no matter what party they belong to. This will be the policy throughout the country.
Sen. [Alejandro] Almendras is making noises of government corruption in spare parts in the Bureau of Highway and CAA [Civil Aeronautics Administration]. The SSS [Social Security System] sent him a routinary notice of foreclosure on his P5.6 million loan that has now become P6.5 million because of delinquencies on amortization and interest. Then he called me up from Davao City on the typhoon damage to Davao del Sur specially Malita, Sta. Maria and towns south. Matter of fact—as if he had done nothing.
Mrs. Adelina Rodriguez was here in the morning and in the afternoon seeking advi[c]e on the elections. I just greeted her. Imelda attended to her.
I have just received the NEC [National Economic Council] recommendation on the 15th year reparations schedule.
Adelina Rodriguez was the first woman elected to office as the Mayor of Quezon City, serving from 1976 to 1986