Aquino on Aquino: "I'm one man that wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was born with a diamond spoon in my mouth!" Privileged from birth, Aquino inherited rich rice fields and sugar plantations in Tarlac. With a pleasant personality sparked by a brilliant grasp of the Spanish language, he's quick on the trigger with plenty of wit and a sense of humor, Machiavellian as the old master himself. A chameleon by nature, he changes color so fast that he should never be taken at face value, and certainly not at word value. He's an opportunist at heart, to the extent that his conscience has become inert, dead to the sorrow and suffering of Filipinos. A maverick who dared fate and came out way ahead, he now hides his fears behind a quick smile, fast words and an act of operatic bravado. The newsreels though, show he's getting sensitive around the gills; his nerves are starting to fray. But the show must go on, the actor must play his part, and he's still enough of a master to fool his audience, as he did last night on the occasion of a small gathering.

Impressed by a large aircraft factory in Manchukuo, he said that he believed the Japanese were producing ten to eleven thousand planes a month. Shrugging off all challenges, he said he expected a Japanese offensive to start soon. And what about the Americans? Let them come and get a licking. As for the Philippines, there are 228,000 Japanese soldiers here, and he just received a wire from Tojo saying 350,000 to 550,000 more are coming! And what will the Filipinos eat? Rice, he snapped. And when Roxas said that even with the recent confiscation by the Biba, rice would run out in July, he just shrugged his shoulders (brilliantly, he thought) and said: "So what? The Japs will bring it in." So smooth was his reply that you could be forgiven for temporarily forgetting that the Japanese lack both the rice and the bottoms^† to ship it.

Aquino had complete command of the floor, and relishing it, he was out to give his most sensational performance — and what mattered how he did it? The play's the thing, we're all in a stage, marionettes clutched tightly in the hands of an irrational fate. Did Aquino intend to quibble over a lie or two? Never ... the bigger the better! But he's human after all, as revealed when he asked during a lull: "What do the people think of me?"

"Well I'll tell you," one answered, "I wouldn't be seen riding in your automobile."

"I don't know, what do you think?"

That shrug again, before the answer leapt out in Spanish: "Hell, what do I care? I prefer to die fighting in the last battle...."

I couldn't help but scoff. Aquino, with his diamond spoon, die fighting? The funny thing about Aquino is that his wife and children are pro-American, and Roxas is godfather to one of his children. Incidentally, Aquino worked hard to get Hans Menzi out from Fort Santiago. But when Roxas asked: "How about getting our friends Elizalde, Pirovano and Buttenbruch out of Bilibid?"

Aquino answered: "They're your friends, not mine."

About the Manchukuo trip, Aquino recalled a particular bumpy ride in the plane:

I'm used to plane travel so I didn't mind the pitching and tossing. But ... ha-ha ... you should have seen Yulo ... white to the gills! He was so scared you could have cut off his ears and he wouldn't have noticed ... ha-ha-ha! And Alunan ... ha-ha-ha-ha ... Alunan is tall isn't he? Well ... harh-harh-harh ... he got even taller!"

. . . .

When my friend said that Vargas' successor had already been chosen, I said, "He's a marked man."

"Oh, not Duran," he countered. "Duran was pro-Japanese from way back, as you well know, but his trip to Japan fixed him — he changed his mind right there and then."

...ooOoo...

^† Cargo ships