After a 24-hour breathing spell, the threat of evacuation has sobered everyone up again. Prices began to weaken immediately as people sought to change their "investments" into something more portable like cash. Those with somewhere to go hastened preparations to evacuate. The 4,000-strong Spanish community has no plans to move. The Zobels and their friends (150-strong) will go to their hacienda in Calatagan, while the Roxas crowd and friends will go to theirs at Nasugbu — adjoining the Zobel's. Santamaria and Machado will join them. Individual families are making plans for Baguio, or towns nearby, but definitely outside Manila and environs. Meanwhile, three Japanese transports disembarked troops in Lingayen, and rumor has it many will be stationed in a new garrison in Baguio.

Those that intend to stay have their own worries: housing and food. Business is now definitively on the rocks. The masses have used up their reserves of cash and goods — and this is one country where there is NO rationing of food. One gets nothing and everything costs plenty. No one on a salary can cover his expenses. I doubt if the situation will be any better outside Manila. So let the catastrophe come, but make it mercifully quick.