Tribune: "Nippon Extends Loan to P.I." — 200-million Yen from the Bank of Japan. Laurel is "grateful." Murata says it's a "manifestation of Nippon sincerity." No doubt it'll be paid in worthless military paper.

A nervous Peter Siy would like to get out of Pasay. Japanese planes, aiming at the Bay, test their machine guns overhead. The Da Silvas live in a modest compound of four houses. They all got a good scare last month when a stray round from an American plane exploded at the side of one house, and yet they won't construct an air raid shelter. Why tempt the Japanese to seize the compound?

The Food Administration took an inventory of Sam Awad's textiles, worth over half a million pesos at fixed prices, then sealed his bodega. The next day the Japanese army ignored the seals and took the textiles without making an inventory. Now they're pressing Sam to accept P60,000 for all of it — 1/3 the fixed price but for a quantity well below what they actually took! He's being coerced to sign an application requesting payment, and it's all in Japanese except for "Application Approved" at the bottom where he is supposed to sign. No doubt the personnel of the army (San Beda Unit) made a few million on the deal.

Yesterday, A Japanese unit, trucks and all, tired and dirty from their trip, moved into George Li's district. Settling in a nearby grove, they set out to find firewood. George Li returned home to find the bamboo fence he had just built to protect his vegetable garden gone, and his garden being tidied up by a couple of industrious, hungry pigs. The Japanese used bayonets to also take apart the hut a family had built for their help — all for firewood.

This morning, George and I talked to a third party national who claimed to be on Pier 7 during last month's bombing. He said he took off from there and didn't stop running for five minutes. The gist: Pier 7 totally burned along with much rice, sugar and war material. Parts of the roofing still stand riddled by machine gun bullets. A big shipment of bombs and bullets that arrived at Pier 3 five days earlier all went up in smoke, as did the Earnshaw Docks and Government Island. Laborers are refusing offers of fantastic pay to work there; boys and girls aged 10 to 14 have taken their place.

All day today Japanese planes patrolled overhead. The Alert signal was still on tonight.