MALACAÑAN PALACE
Manila
7:20 PM as I await the
dinner for Mr. J. George
Harrar, Pres. of the
Rockefeller Foundation
February 2, 1971
Tuesday
The jeepney drivers’ strike has failed to stop traffic but the radical students at UP, Sto. Tomas and Ateneo starting woodfires: At the UP red flag at the Art and Science Bldg., Oblation statue painted red, all entrances to UP barricaded, woodfire at Venson Hall which was occupied by combined QCPD and Metrocom with 3 students arrested and one Metrocom man hurt due to pillbox explosion; at 1630 hrs. situation at Legarda-Recto becoming unruly; at 1633 students at UP burned sentry gate (entrance to Balara); while students from Ateneo stopping all vehicles passing Katipunan Road.
I attach Reports Nos. 3 and 4 as well as 5 of the Advance Command Post of the Presidential Security Command.
The violence will probably continue as the students desperately shore up their credibility in predicting paralization of all traffic and the media report their failure.
I tried out the jeep of R & D (Research and Development Br.) of the AFP under Col. Baula fueled not by gasoline but with alcohol. Engine converted by a simple circular dollar size piece of metal from gas to alcohol.
I keep on pushing the prospecting of oil. Mr. Guthrie of South Eastern Sierra Madre who will drill in the Cotabato Sarangani Peninsula paid me a courtesy call.
Then sought to settle the conflicts of congressmen and governors in Pangasinan, Albay, Agusan del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur.
Imelda and I had lunch and a most intimate exchange of views at Suite I with Father Jose A. Cruz and Sister Felicidad Villareal.
Dr. and Mrs. J. George Harrar who is President of the Rockefeller Foundation is visiting the IRRI and the Bay Medical Training Center for Rural Medical Practitioners and looking into the Population Center building for which the foundation would contribute $800,000 while we give a counterpart at the rate of one peso to the dollar. USAID gives another $800,000 and Ford another $800.000.