12:45 PM
May 25, 1973
Friday
Malacañan Palace
Manila
Manila traffic problem — the banning of the jeepneys from the main thoroughfares.
- Ordered the number of jeepneys in Greater Manila reduced from 23,000 to 10,000 several thousand to be permitted on the main thoroughfares. Buses for [illegible]
- Engineering facilities improved including knocking down the islands in the middle of the road.
- Task force to enforce orders.
- Staggering office hours in the public and private sector.
Approved the oil exploration service contract of Philipps the 8th biggest US explorer.
UP Law Alumni reunion in front of the palace. I attach my prepared text which I discarded.
Instead I spoke of the past, present and future history of the country in confluence in the reunion.
I explained that the Colleges’ tradition of constitutionalism and legalism made me choose a constitutional authoritarianism and not a revolutionary government. It would have been less tedious, difficult and [illegible] to have declared a revolutionary government but I would not have been true to myself.