What they stand for: PCPI: Please Cancel Philippine Independence; NARIC: No Action, Rice Is Confiscated; BIBA: Bigas Bawal [Rice Prohibited]; and of course, Aquino Duran Laurel [Spanish for 'here, laurels do not endure'].

A few American old-timers at Santo Tomas without passports, which weren't necessary when they first arrived, have lost their rations. A fellow came griping to me about the injustice of it all. I resisted telling him how well the Germans were faring.

The edge is wearing thin for some girls as the attention from GIs becomes excessive. The welcoming cheer a GI used to be greeted with upon entering a house is becoming a groan when "another one" shows up. Some of the hospitality was due to Spanish manners: "Won't you join us for lunch?" really meant, "We're going to eat now, won't you leave?" The Americans took it literally of course, and hosts have now become wiser. Girls finding it difficult to refuse dates are giving GIs the runaround literally: wrong or nonexistent addresses.

. . . .

At the end of the fourth month the best we can say is at least we have water. Little is being done for the suffering masses as the government staggers in front of its Herculean task. Food rationing, already insufficient, has been reduced, and bread has been cut since the ECA^† took over, hence it's now known as Eat Camotes Again.

. . . .

Had a heated run-in with the property custodian again — a testy Capt. Parker who threatened that it could take all of six months! The Army still hasn't evacuated its goods after five weeks, and renters are pressuring Dad. He needs the rent to pay property tax. Later I went to see a Major Becker. He couldn't help too though at least he was on the ball: "Having trouble with the Property Custodian? Well, you're not the only one." Reyes tells me that after cleaning up its thoroughly looted ruins, the Chartered Bank sealed some stationery in their safes and closed up for the day. The next morning they found the Property Custodian had sealed the safes! It took all of four days to have them unsealed.

. . . .

^† The Emergency Control Administration [ECA] replaces the PCAU