MFP [final issue]: "USAFFE Bars Collaborators." Those who joined the guerrillas will receive back pay and extra compensation; USAFFE members that joined or served the Japanese will receive pay only up to the day they joined them!

The Anderson Guerrillas claim 70,000 members and asked for privileges to continue fighting (and getting paid, of course). With the Marking Guerrillas 200,000 members and the Hunters' 300,000, a total of 570,000 are expecting back pay.

I saw Talambiras and the genial Mrs. George Adamson at their home to check on the possibility that Father Kelly might have been buried at the Apostolic Delegate's palace. Talambiras didn't see the body, but the Filipinos said they thought it might have been him. The whereabouts of Father Kelly's remains are still unknown.

Talambiras told me he met Mrs. Youngberg as she returned from the National City Bank, where — wonder of wonders — the contents of her safety box were intact. Late in December of 1942, the Japanese called for the keys to inspect all safety deposit boxes. Many internees ignored them, figuring the Japanese would get their hands on the contents anyway. The Japanese made depositors put their valuables back in the boxes while they kept the keys and issued a receipt. Not surprisingly, most of the stuff disappeared, but somewhere along the line the Japanese must have given up on the Herculean task of opening all the boxes without keys.

When the public came to submit their keys, the Japanese first collected rent due for the boxes before the public were allowed to open them — three months for one, six months for another, and so on ... until Talambiras stepped up. He put out his hand and asked for the return of five months advance payment! The startled Japanese officer could only stammer: "No, no ... we're only collecting!"

. . . .

Father Keene worries about the Filipinos after independence, particularly that the politicians would milk them dry:

I don't know how you feel, Henry, but I love these people. I really do. They are a wonderful people, they have wonderful talents, but they just can't do anything the way it should be done.... It will be up to us to fight tooth and nail for justice for the common tao [people], because these politicians will take everything for themselves if they can.

continues...