MALACAÑAN PALACE
Manila
11:10 PM
February 8, 1971
Monday
Mayor Amoranto has asked the barricades in the UP to be removed or he will order the police to enter the campus to do so.
Mayor Villegas has asked for 200 PC men to support the Manila police tomorrow when the demonstrators threaten to block Jones bridge.
In Los Baños, the students have practically isolated the IRRi and the college.
The students are planning to take over the Sto. Tomas University and the PCC.
And Jose Maria Sison is reported to have visited the UP twice.
So now the QCPD and the legal task force of the DND is preparing charges against the UP and other rebels of rebellion.
I have told the SND and the generals that I would not send the Metrocom to the UP using total force if the crimes allegedly committed by the rebels is only robbery or coercion. We would be laughed off the map.
They agreed with me that we had to obtain search warrants and warrants of arrest for rebellion and insurrection so that we could deploy massive force in the campus.
We must be able to arrest the leaders of the rebellion, control the campus after a fast and clean surprise commando raid and avoid inflicting casualties on women and innocent civilians.
Gen. Ordoñez of the Metrocom will command the raid and will employ about 800 men.
Confirmed intelligence is to the effect that there are strangers now guarding the barricades and sporting guns (carbines). The barricades are booby trapped. The rebels plan to use innocent civilians as hostages. So we must swiftly separate and protect the civilians before any shooting starts.
And the library must initiallv be secured.
I have ordered Gen. Paredes to clear Los Baños of barricades.
I enclose a copy of the Feb. 8, 1971 Executive News which has an interesting piece on “Radicals Courting Martial Law?”