Zamboanga fell yesterday and Batavia fell today; disillusioned Filipinos didn't have the heart to doubt it. Many reports point to a big offensive planned against Bataan between the 10th and 15th of this month.

Aquino managed to get the Tribune to issue a notice saying his translated speech "does not faithfully reflect the public statements made by him and that he must have been either misunderstood or misquoted." Most people here believe Aquino has shown his true colors.

Manila is snickering at the cash prizes for the song contest — there were no entries. I suppose they'll have to dig a couple up somehow and we'll all have a good laugh then. The VoF talked about the leaflets dropped on Bataan and also asked listeners to ignore the mail offer. Japanese propaganda is ineffective not only because it's crude but because the Japanese are here to disprove it by their actions.

Our economy is in the doldrums and salaries have been slashed to ludicrous levels. Engineer Pastori recently turned down a wage offer of P100 a month. He used to get P800 to P1,000. A German engineer at Hixbar is working for an unheard of P40. Some laborers are asked to take payment in rice. In Larap, home of the Philippine Iron Mines, the Japanese offered to pay one cavan for three days of work and still couldn't attract enough workers. The miners have taken to the mountains — armed. Just before the Japanese arrived in Naga, Filipinos looted the (mostly Chinese) grocery stores and took the food to the mountains. And there they remain, scorning Japanese wage offers if not the Japanese themselves.

Tojo wasn't kidding when he said the army would sustain itself by food from the provinces it occupied. Rice and sugar were the first to go, and now there's a dangerous shortage of canned milk for our babies. This afternoon La Vanguardia said plenty of bakeries have stopped making bread because they've run out of flour; meaning they can't buy it at a price that'll allow them to make a profit selling bread at fixed prices. For a while the loaves got smaller until the Japanese caught on. Japan will send us no flour, milk or rice (unless they loot it from Saigon); and even if they could they don't appear to be willing. Japan's contribution so far: a donation of P50,000 for the poor plus a P10,000 loan — in military currency, of course.

A La Vanguardia headline says, "The Government will Save P30,000,000" by reducing costs, which cheers no one here. Expenditures were high before but there was money to pay for them; now it's the reverse.