Still raining though the barometer has been rising all morning. What the typhoon lacked in strength, it made up for with staying power. Extensive flooding in the city resulted in a few casualties. Five persons drowned in Mandaluyong when two carretelas tipped over in the floods, and several people were electrocuted before the power was shut. There were at least five fires in Manila, three of which were Japanese bodegas! The largest was at the Bureau of Labor, where three large explosions were heard. The Japanese lost some P7 million worth of chemicals and irreplaceable marine engines there.

We haven't lost any of our ten large trees. Our neighbor, the family who succeeded Fujimoto, lost part of his wooden fence and a horse. It's still lying in their yard where it died three days ago — the smell reaching me even now. By the look of it, their other horse will go soon. They never even fed Fujimoto's dog, and he's apparently gone.

I went out to check the neighborhood, passing Nene lugging a bayong of food on one hand and a large papaya on the other. "P1.50," he announced, cheerily waving the papaya, "but it's all mine now." Klingler told me that Santa Cruz in Laguna was hit hard. The waters reached four meters in some places and swept whole houses away. The poor, as usual, suffered the most. The waters reached chest-high in Santa Ana, and well over anyone's head in Paco and Singalong. People used bancas to evacuate to higher ground.

La Vanguardia issued two-pages in the afternoon, and Manga Avenue got electricity this evening ahead of most places, perhaps because two generals reside here.