That should be an easy enough question to sort out. MacArthur himself takes responsibility for establishing the refugee camps. So, either his claim can be corroborated or not. Here's one place where he claims responsibility:
My food situation had been increasingly prejudiced by the great number of civilians who had fled into Bataan with our army forces. The Japanese had craftily furthered this movement by friving the frightened population of the province of Zambales, just north of Bataan, into our lines, knowing full well we would feed them -- a humanitarian measure which cut deeply into our food stocks. I had to establish refugee camps back of our defense positions for many thousands of these forlorn people, mostly old men, women, and children. It forced me to cut the soldiers rations by not only half, but later to one quarter of the prescribed allowance."MacArthur, Douglas A. (1965) "Reminiscences: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur", (p130), Fawcett Publications
As it pertains to prior mention on this thread of political and humanitarian reasons behind not seizing civilian supplies and obeying Philippine prohibitions against transporting foodstuffs across provincial lines, we have here from MacArthur circa Dec 18, 1941
"I was greatly concerned by the needs of the stricken civilian population and President Roosevelt authorized me to make available 200-million pesos for relief purposes. I at once turned this amount over to President Quezon. "MacArthur, Douglas A. (1965) "Reminiscences: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur", (p123), Fawcett Publications
To emphasis the seriousness of official USAFFE policy towards commandeering civilian foodstuffs:
When it became obvious shortly after the Japanese landings that Luzon might soon come completely under enemy control, the increasing objection of the Commonwealth Government to measures that might reduce the food available to the Philippine public under Japanese occupation handicapped further accumulation of food reserves. This objection was reflected in the frequent re- fusal of Headquarters, USAFFE, to approve the commandeering of food, even the seizure of stocks owned by Japanese nationals.An incident at the Tarlac Depot illus- trates this difficulty. The commanding of- ficer, Col. Charles S. Lawrence, planned the confiscation of 2,000 cases of canned fish and corned beef and sizable quantities of clothing, all of which were held in the warehouses of Japanese firms. But USAFFE disapproved the plan and informed Colonel Lawrence that he would be court-martialed if he took the goods.
Stauffer, Alvin P., (1956) "United States Army in World War II ,The Technical Services, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the war against Japan",Center of Military History, United States Army, (p-9)
And remember not to associate government food stocks as civilian foodstocks. The reference you cite in the Green Book concerns commandiering individual and town food supplies, not accessing a government store and taking a minor percentage of the total supply.
I may have gotten some items reversed or co-mingled. Sorry about that. As I understand it, forward units defending Luzon beaches were supplied out of three regional depots at Tarlac, Los Banos and Gaugau. Of these three, Tarlac was the largest. These regional depots were in turned supplied by the main USAFFE Quartermasters depot at Manila.
Forces did not draw all their food from USAFFE stores. Even in the forward areas post Dec 8, much food such as perishables was purchased in local markets.
Government supplies depots like the Cabantuan supplies were designated for use by the troops when they were defending the beaches among other things and it would stand to reason that this would still be true in the withdraw to Bataan.
The Cabanatuan Rice Central to my knowledge was not under control of USAFFE. It was just a place where USAFFE could purchase rice as needed. I believe the rice was unhusked which meant it would then have to be milled but mills did exist on Bataan.
The Navy, though they had a smaller outfit to supply, began withdrawing supplies to Corregidor a full 10 days before MacArhtur did. They even gave some of their surplus after completing this task to the army. It is unfortunate that there were still not coordinated logistics even by this point in time. It harkens back to the days when the army had to charter civilian liners to load units and provisions for the invasion of the Philippines in 1898.
The service branches did not operate well together in those days. The navy received first word in the Philippines of the attack on Pearl Harbor yet failed to call MacArthur to ask if he heard the news.
Still, MacArthur had plenty of time to make the right call and begin supplying Bataan. He failed on this account and made his decisions after it was too late to meet the demand.
If at best the USAFFE on Dec 7, 1941 maintained a 60 day supply and defensive reserves were on back order to the States, what should MacArthur have done that would have enabled Bataan to hold out until say July 1942?
I close with another Quartermasters quote:
Peacetime procedures for meeting current supply requirements did not permit the ac- cumulation of stocks in quantities large enough to fill gaps in the defense reserves. The main supply installation, the Philip- pine Quartermaster Depot in Manila, requi- sitioned items for current use only in the quantities necessary to maintain a sixty-day level of supply for U.S. troops and Philip- pine Scouts. Since rice, sugar, coffee, and perishable foods were abundant in the com- mercial markets, the depot did not buy the items as they were needed but delegated their procurement to posts and stations. These installations, able to secure these foods whenever they were wanted, filled their im- mediate requirements by frequent purchases from nearby merchants but built up, nor- mally, only a few days' reserve. This meant that when war came there were only small stocks of these essential supplies.The Manila Base Quartermaster Depot, hurriedly established in September 1941, was designed to perform for the Philippine Army the same functions that the Philip- pine Quartermaster Depot performed for the Regular Army, but the early outbreak of war gave it too little time to obtain ade- quate stocks for either current or reserve use. Accordingly the Philippine Quarter- master Depot was given responsibility for supplying the Commonwealth Army, with the result that its limited stocks were soon almost depleted.
Stauffer, Alvin P., (1956) "United States Army in World War II ,The Technical Services, The Quartermaster Corps: Operations in the war against Japan",Center of Military History, United States Army, (p-5)
I think the title says it all. Remember, Mac was a self promoter, I'm sure he remembers it that way. But his failure to properly move supplies tells a different story.
And we are still left with the fact that there were adequate supplies of food availible that would not have interfered with the civilian food supply. The minor cases from the Green Book easily represent the localized foodstores which they were ordered to leave alone but there were large supluses that did not fall under those restrictions which were readily available yet still not accessed.
My understanding of facilities like the ones on Cananatuan was that it was under Filopino authority, but at the disposal of the USAFFE per Quezon. This means that supplies could be requisitioned from the facility and not just purchased. Even so, the supplies on Tarlac, and Los Banos were also abandoned. These were also large depots and these were under direct USAFFE control.
MacArthur could have moved these supplies to Bataan, but reacted too late, 10 days later than the Navy in fact, and left Bataan undersupplied as a result.