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March 9, 1942

Paez may resign. Melo and Abes have left already. With Pagu in Fort Santiago, I will be left alone. And it is especially now that we should stick together. Oliveros is trying his best to fill Pagu’s job. Tanco is quite a help, for he gets along with the Japanese. We have a very important task. Yes, there are a lot of difficulties and unpleasantness. But we have to sacrifice personal preference for public service. Even if under the present set-up, only the crumbs that fall from the Japanese table go to the Filipinos, we’ve got to help gather and collect and equitably [distribute] those crumbs, if we don’t want to see our men, women and children starve. Of course, most people, and even high government officials, don’t give much weight to prognostications of shortage and possible hunger these days. They do not see beyond the bowl of rice on their tables. But our rice supply is not an everlasting, never-ending source. The rice in our bodegas is fast being consumed. Importation is not in our hands. And if we don’t pull together and do something about procuring the rice in our fields, it will rot and before we know it, the price of rice will sky-rocket. Then we shall wake up, get excited and alarmed, and vainly search for rice. Some, of course, will have rice stocked in their houses. But many others will have none. And it will be the same old story of the “have-nots” fighting the “haves.” Blood will surely flow and…

Oh well I hope I’m wrong.