Did I tell you that a deck of ordinary playing cards now sells for ₱17.5? The camp paid ₱12.00 for two tires and tubes for the bus. Sugar is ₱2.80 per kilo, ₱3.75 at Santo Tomás I understand—corned beef ₱4.00 per can. That reminds me—the Francisco’s running poker games and buying tremendous quantities of canned goods. ₱100-₱150 at a crack. I sometimes wonder why more of us are not like them. On the other hand it makes me favor a Hitler regime only they’re the type that make Hitlers, the tragedy of it is that most of those that play at their lousy tables haven’t a pot, and the real answer is that if people don’t know how to take care of themselves, someone should take care of them. But of course that’s contrary to our democratic principles. I hate the type that makes the Francisco type of exploitation possible almost as much as I hate the latter.
Charles Mock
(1908 – 1964) an American originally imprisoned together with other Allied civilians in the University of Santo Tomas, kept a journal of his time in the prisoner of war camp in Los Baños, Laguna.
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