Award of Air Mail Contracts

November 29, 1936

COMMONWEALTH ACT NO. 223

AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE AWARD OF AIR MAIL CONTRACTS AND APPROPRIATING THE NECESSARY FUNDS THEREFOR

SECTION 1. The Secretary of Public Works and Communications, with the approval of the President of the Philippines, is authorized to enter, from time to time, into contracts for the transportation of mails by air between any points within the Philippines and between the Philippines and foreign countries for periods not to exceed five years. The base rate of pay in awarding such contract shall in no case exceed seventy-five centavos per airplane mile for transporting a mail load not to exceed three hundred pounds. In fixing the base rate of pay, the passenger capacity of the planes carrying the mails should be taken into consideration. Payment for transportation shall be at the base rate fixed in the contract for the first three hundred pounds of mail, or fraction thereof, plus one-tenth of such base rate for each additional one hundred pounds of mail or fraction thereof, computed at the end of each calendar month on the basis of the average mail load carried by mile over the route during such month. With reference to the airmail to foreign countries the pay shall be in accordance with the provisions of Act Numbered Three thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine.

SECTION 2. The Secretary of Public Works and Communications is hereby authorized to grant to the parties to whom the contracts for the transportation of the mails by air above mentioned are awarded, the right, to use any and all navigation facilities, including landing fields, now or hereafter opened, operated, or controlled by the Government of the Philippines or any subdivision thereof.

SECTION 3. The Secretary of Public Works and Communications, with the approval of the President of the Philippines, is hereby authorized to make and issue such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this Act.

SECTION 4. To carry out the provisions of this Act, the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pesos for the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven is hereby appropriated out of the funds in the Philippine Treasury not otherwise appropriated. The amount hereby appropriated shall be disbursed by the Secretary of Public Works and Communications. The unexpended balance at the end of such year shall revert to the unappropriated general funds in the Philippine Treasury.

SECTION 5. In case of any deficiency in any annual appropriation made for the purposes of this Act, the Secretary of Public Works and Communications, with the approval of the President of the Philippines, may use, for the payment of services of airmail contractors as herein provided, the whole of the revenue derived from the additional postage collected on airmails, or such portion thereof as he may deem convenient.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on January first, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven.

Approved, November 29, 1936.