Authorizing Provincial Boards to Organize and Manage Agricultural Colonies on Public Land

February 28, 1919

ACT NO. 2806

AN ACT AUTHORIZING PROVINCIAL BOARDS TO ORGANIZE AND MANAGE AGRICULTURAL COLONIES ON PUBLIC LAND, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

SECTION 1. Provincial boards of regular or special provinces within the boundaries of which there are lands suitable for cultivation and appropriation under the homestead provisions are hereby authorized to create and organize agricultural colonies in accordance with the provisions of this Act. For this purpose, the provincial boards, shall, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, issue such regulations as may be necessary for the organization, government, and administration of the colonies, and may furnish to the colonists, as an advance, work cattle or implements and extend to them such economic or other assistance as may be necessary during the first three years. The colonists shall pay the price of the work cattle and implements and any other indebtedness contracted by them at once or in installments, as the provincial board may prescribe in its regulations. cdtech

SECTION 2. The colonists shall pay to the provincial government the amount of the advances made by an annual percentage of their crops, to be fixed by the provincial board in its regulations, aside from the other payments they are required to make under the last preceding section. Each provincial board shall fix in the regulations the rate of interest to be charged for money of the provincial treasury invested in any of the objects provided for in this Act for the benefit of the colonists.

SECTION 3. In case that owing to drought, inundation, typhoon, locusts, or any other public calamity or force majeure, the land yields less than fifty per centum of a normal crop, in the discretion of the provincial board, the colonist affected shall be relieved, for the year during which such calamity occurred, from any payment of the capital and interest provided for in this Act.

SECTION 4. The land occupied by any colonist in accordance with this Act, and the improvements thereon, shall be exempt from the land tax until the colonist shall have acquired the title thereto.

SECTION 5. Appropriation. — Provincial boards are hereby authorized to appropriate up to the amount of fifty thousand pesos out of their general funds for the purposes of this Act, or, in case of their funds being insufficient, to apply to the Philippine National Bank for a loan in an amount not to exceed fifty thousand pesos, subject to the restrictions contained in the existing laws with regard to loans and indebtedness contracted by the provinces.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on its approval. casia

Approved: February 28, 1919