MALACAÑAN PALACE
Manila
12:35 PM
February 6, 1971
Saturday
Mr. and Mrs Richard Berlin are our guests at Suite I of the palace. He heads the large and prestigious Hearst Publications.
We sleep at the boat (777) tonight after dinner on the way to Corregidor and Dambana Ng Kagitingan.
The futile exercise that is Congress has started with Tolentino and Puyat attacking my veto of the appropriation act provision that requires the automatic release of Congressional funds including their allowances and Roy catching the Herald headline on his waging war on my executive order increasing the tariff on crude oil from 10% to 15% and Perez sarcastically commenting on our hot and cold policy on the demonstrators.
I have directed the issuance of a press release on the first two items. I enclose the release.
5:45 PM after the rally of
the Kawani, the teachers and
the enlisted men supporting the
democratic revolution and the
fight against the oligarchs.
Atty. Lupino Lazaro, the head of the striking drivers just called me up after Bung Tanco met him, to inform me that he was calling off the strike on his own and in accordance with his conscience because he and his men “are being used as tools by evil minds” and the strike has resulted in senseless killing.
He had been calling me up through Bobby Reyes and he indicated that he wanted a face-saving device so he could call off the strike. He wanted me to meet with him and the other leaders of the strikers and to appeal to them so they could graciously call off the strike. I had Bung Tanco call him to a meeting and inform him that he has to do it on his own, although if he needed to say that I had appealed to him (Lazaro) he could do so. Apparently there was no need for it.
Lazaro is a beaten man. The strikers have not been able to stop the jeepneys and buses from running. And the citizenry is turning against them. Even the media has partially turned around and are in some sectors fairer to the government authorities.
I doubt it if Lazaro can stop the students, though. If Lazaro calls off the strike, the students will have no ground to stand on. The UP take-over will be untenable and the students will have to peacefully hand it over to the University authorities. In a way this will be a let-down for many people who want the UP radicals to be taught a lesson, arrested and prosecuted. For that matter many people now want forceful action against the radicals.
Chino Roces and Geny Lopez are up to their old tricks again. They invited the publishers and editors to a breakfast at 7:30 AM at the Andres Soriano Hall at San Miguel Bldg. allegedly to consider Senate Bill 589 of Sen. Tañada, the anti-monopoly bill which these two claim was my creation and which I asked Tañada to file (which, of course, is not true).
But Chino Roces, according to Europa editor of Evening News who was sent to the breakfast by Freddie Elizalde, tried to incite Andrew Go, the publisher of the Daily Star, against me saying that I was blaming the Chinese for high prices and that I would soon burn Chinatown. And Andrew Go seemed to believe this.
Anyway, these two were working for the newspapers to come out with a pooled editorial asking my resignation. Tony Araneta was for this.