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It's said that the 131 casualties do not represent the total; some 500 workmen at Nichols alone "got it, and how." The Japanese won't mention it because it smacks of negligence on their part. As it is, they're having a hard enough time getting laborers to work in the airfields.

The uninitiated are having a great time. The Americans have landed in Mindanao, they say, or they'll be here in weeks. One said fourteen battleships were sunk in the Bay. Most feel that a lot more than eleven ships went down. Crossing the Jones Bridge today, I looked down the Pasig catching a glimpse of an insignificantly small part of the Bay — enough to see the smokestacks of two sunken vessels. One fellow counted twenty wrecks.

The big fire yesterday turned out to be another tanker on fire, probably trying to make it back to Manila. One of the ships that blew up in the Bay had military currency aboard. I remember seeing some kids chasing after leaflets; they were P10 and P100 bills that floated down on a wide area of Manila, including Manga Avenue.

The country is a great case study for inflation. A friend was telling me today that he had five sacks of beans worth P50,000. I told him that if he had that much money, he could only buy five sacks of beans with it and nothing else. The beggars don't ask for money anymore, only food. From today, old man Perrenaud will not accept watches for repair. Even if he charged fantastic prices, he said, what could the money buy? Better to be home planting food, "n'est-çe-pas?" In financial terms, our country is moving several centuries back into a barter economy.