The diplomatic gasoline ration has been cut 60 per cent. The stocks are getting low with communications to the southern regions practically severed. But the transport situation may be only half the reason for the change. It is expected that soon the foreign office will issue a circular requesting diplomats to travel by automobile in the country only with special permission and accompanied by an official representative of the foreign office. At bottom one finds the same rising suspicion of all foreigners. A Thai diplomat got into a violent quarrel the other night in one of the largest Tokyo stations because he was overheard talking in English. A German journalist happened to mention to another German that there was a battery of anti-aircraft guns near his house; the next day he was picked up by the kempei-tai. Even our old maid Kubota has now reached the stage of depression where she talks of girding on a sword when the Americans come and fighting them in the streets. She adds, only half in jest, that she will cut off our heads first because “all you Filipinos are pro-Americans.”
Leon Ma. Guerrero
(March 24, 1915 — June 24, 1982). Lawyer, journalist and diplomat. Served in USAFFE (later, USFIP) in the press relations staff, then assigned to Corregidor; upon surrender of USFIP and release from internment, served as a technical assistant to Jorge B. Vargas in the Philippine Executive Commission, then resumed broadcasting (station PIAM) under the same pseudonym he had used prior to the Japanese Occupation: Ignacio Javier. He then joined the diplomatic service of the Second Republic of the Philippines, assigned to the Philippine embassy in Tokyo under Jorge B. Vargas, ambassador.
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