Committee to Study the Ways and Means of Promoting the Development of Mindanao and Sulu

November 22, 1929

ACT NO. 3540

AN ACT CREATING A COMMITTEE TO STUDY THE WAYS AND MEANS OF PROMOTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF MINDANAO AND SULU AND OTHER ESPECIALLY ORGANIZED PROVINCES, AND DEFINING ITS DUTIES AND POWERS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

SECTION 1. The Governor-General is hereby authorized to appoint, with the consent of the Philippine Senate, a committee of five members to study the ways and means of promoting the development of Mindanao and Sulu and the other especially organized provinces, which shall be known as Advisory Committee on Mindanao-Sulu and Special Provinces. The Director of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes may be designated by the Governor-General to act as Secretary and Executive Officer of the said Committee.

SECTION 2. The duties of this committee shall be:

(a) To recommend a comprehensive system of highways or and railways whichever may best suit the needs of the region;

(b) To advise ways and means of encouraging the movement of population to Mindanao and Sulu by establishing agricultural colonies where needed and by assisting homeseekers in every legitimate way;

(c) To recommend adequate reservations for the use of (1) non-Christian natives; (2) homesteaders and small capitalists; and (3) Government purposes;

(d) To recommend ways and means of providing universal elementary education for children of school age; CTEacH

(e) To recommend appropriate action that would place, as rapidly as conditions may warrant, the especially organized provincial and municipal governments on the same basis as the regularly organized provincial and municipal governments; and

(f) To recommend proper coordination of the functions of the different offices in charge of the Government activities in Mindanao and Sulu and especially organized provinces to the end that the Government machinery dealing with the so-called non-Christian problem may function efficiently.

SECTION 3. The committee herein created shall have authority to call upon any official or employee of the Government, through the proper Department Head, for assistance in complying with the duties imposed upon it by this Act, and any expense that said officials or employees may incur in connection with the work performed by them upon request of the committee shall be charged to the appropriations for their respective offices: Provided, That such members of the Legislature as may be appointed to this committee shall be entitled to actual and necessary travel expenses when attending sessions of the same, which expenses shall be chargeable to the appropriation for their respective Houses.

SECTION 4. The committee herein created shall submit to the Governor-General and the Philippine Legislature a report of its work together with its recommendations not later than July sixteenth, nineteen hundred and thirty. ISAcHD

SECTION 5. Act Numbered Thirty-three hundred and sixty-four is hereby repealed.

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

Approved, November 22, 1929.