Moros attacked the Constabulary Headquarters in Cotabato, Mindanao. I saw a list of "Outlaw Band" leaders, their numbers of men and territories of operation. They may be guerrillas because they don't have traditional Moro names. The report mentioned that in Mindanao, only Cotabato has organized districts and Neighborhood Associations.

When rationing began, the Ateneo got a sack of rice for every five persons — 52 sacks a month for 260 people. In the last two months, they only got 28 sacks. The ration has dropped from 300 to 240 grams daily per person, and some feel they are not even getting that much.

For us, 300 grams was plenty because we also ate bread and potatoes. Now, even bananas — the poor man's fruit — are expensive, so native families are more dependent on rice than ever. They've resorted to making lugao to stretch it. The typhoon contributed to the shortage, but a larger problem is the lack of incentive to plant and sell at fixed prices when the cost of living has risen three-fold. The government should have been buying the rice at P10 or P15 per sack and selling it to the public at P8 instead of fixing the price. Now, guerrillas are also telling farmers to not send rice to Manila because the Japanese will get it.

Being proverbial rice eaters, the Japanese have taken five times more rice from us than they've imported. Yet every time they send us 50,000 sacks from Saigon or Thailand, they make a big splash about their "benevolence." Even dogs in the Philippines eat a lot of rice, but pets don't get rations. If you have a big dog, you'll have to pay P150 a sack in the black market for extra rice. Menzi's horse — a mere 51 inches high — costs P200 a month to feed. Not surprisingly, I saw two dead horses in the street today.