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March 21, 1945 Wednesday

It is 6:30 p.m. We are ready for the journey. Everyone is tearful. It is very touching. The people we are leaving would have stayed with us to the very end. Now we are leaving them. We may never see them again.

We left exactly 9:25 that evening. We used three cars and four trucks. Papa, Mama, my three sisters and Dodjie used the first car. Speaker Benigno Aquino, Betty and her two boys, Minister and Mrs. Camilo Osias took the second car, Ambassador Murata and his secretary Mr. Masaki, rode in the third. Kuya Pito, Kuya Pepe, Maning and I boarded the third Army truck which also carried our luggage. 40 Japanese soldiers, with their supplies and equipment, used the three other trucks.

How beautiful Baguio was only three months ago -and how badly battered it is now! I asked myself, “Where are we going?” I really don’t know. All I know is that we are heading north, that we are still in the mountain trails of Benguet, and that with all my thick clothes I am shivering from the cold.