An Act to Provide for the Holding of a National Congress for the Consideration of the Medical, Social, and Economic Aspects of the Tuberculosis Problem in the Philippine Islands, and to Appropriate Funds therefor

March 6, 1924

ACT NO. 3138

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE HOLDING OF A NATIONAL CONGRESS FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF THE MEDICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE TUBERCULOSIS PROBLEM IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, AND TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS THEREFOR

SECTION 1. Provision is hereby made for the holding in Manila of a National Congress for the consideration of the tuberculosis problem in its medical, social, and economic aspects, during the period from September twentieth to twenty-ninth, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, or at any time thereafter during the present year, as the Executive Committee hereinafter created may determine.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall be held under the auspices of the Philippine Islands Antituberculosis Society, which latter shall organize an Executive Committee composed of the President at the Antituberculosis Society, who shall be its chairman, the Director of Health, the Public Welfare Commissioner, the Director of the Bureau of Science, the deans of the colleges of medicine of the Universities of the Philippines and Santo Tomas, and the presidents of the Colegio Medico-Farmaceutico de Filipinas, the Philippine Islands Medical Association, and the Manila Medical Society, or their representatives. This Executive Committee may designate the officers of the Congress.

SECTION 3. The Congress shall deliberate upon (a) the prevalence, extension, morbidity, and mortality of tuberculosis in the Philippine Islands; (b) the economic importance of the ravages caused by the disease; (e) the direct and indirect general and local causes of the same; (d) the influence of sex, occupation, social status, economic condition, way of living, vices, and other peculiarities of the Filipinos upon the high morbidity and mortality of tuberculosis; (e) a comprehensive plan of adequate precautions, measures, resources, and procedures for an extensive campaign against the disease, tending to bring about its decrease and gradual extirpation. IHaECA

SECTION 4. The following may participate in the Congress as members thereof: All physicians duly qualified to practice in the Philippine Islands, licensed nurses, representatives of charitable organizations, and in general, all persons interested in the tuberculosis problem. To this end and in order to make the Congress a success, the Director of Health shall request each district health officer to present to the Congress, either personally or through a representative, a report on the tuberculosis situation, the extension of the disease, its direct and indirect causes, and adequate remedies, so far as their respective districts are concerned. EcICDT

The members of the Congress shall also include a representative for each province, to be designated by the provincial board concerned or the body acting in its stead, who shall be a practising physician and a resident of the province he represents.

SECTION 5. The presence in Manila of the district health officers or their representatives in compliance with the provisions of the next preceding section shall be considered official for all legal purposes, and said officers shall be entitled to their actual traveling expenses from their respective stations to the City of Manila and vice versa.

SECTION 6. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee organized under section two of this Act, within sixty days after the adjournment of the Congress, to report to the Philippine Legislature all resolutions adopted by said Congress, with the proper recommendations.

SECTION 7. The sum of twenty thousand pesos is hereby appropriated, out of any funds in the Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for disbursement by the Executive Committee created by this Act, which shall have authority to approve traveling expenses and fix per diems for the members of the Congress. It shall likewise be incumbent upon said committee to determine which of the private citizens shall be entitled to the traveling expenses and per diems herein provided for.

SECTION 8. This Act shall take effect on its approval.

Approved, March 6, 1924.