Rains continue — very light at the moment. Some Japanese planes were overhead for a change. Air-raid shelters force-built by the N.A. are flooded to the brim. In Manga Avenue, the indefatigable Graemiger has the best shelter. Kaufmann has just completed his (both have tops). The Klinglers and perhaps Kreill have good ones. We have nothing.

Anent the "honor" roll for rice donors that the city (and Maharajah) have been waiting for, pardon me if I snort a bit. The Biba still has much rice belonging to rich hacenderos ... and though a few of these may donate something, rest assured it's only after they have carefully fattened their pocketbooks.

Incidentally, Maharajah's column says: "Today, we complete two years of healthy nationalism in classical music." I'm reminded of what one Filipino laborer answered when a Japanese officer asked him what Filipinos thought about the resignation of the Tojo Cabinet: "We don't care about the Tojo Cabinet. What we want to know is only why we have not enough rice."

In lieu of Commentator, who's been absent for two days, here's what a bystander said upon seeing Japanese soldiers pass by carrying bamboo poles: "Look, here comes a Japanese mechanized division." Yesterday on the Escolta, we saw what one could call a Japanese transport unit — a hundred Japanese soldiers, two by two, between them carrying cases hung on bamboo poles resting on their shoulders. With so much stuff in Manila that they can't take out, the Japanese will have to fight here.