Reorganizing and Consolidating the Executive Departments of the Commonwealth Government

August 8, 1944

EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 15-W

REORGANIZING AND CONSOLIDATING THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS OF THE COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT

For the purpose of adapting the functions of the Executive Departments of the Commonwealth Government, now temporarily established in the United States, to the exigencies and necessities of the war situation, and the public interest so demanding, I, Sergio Osmeña, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution and the Emergency Powers Law, do hereby reorganize and consolidate the Executive Departments of the Commonwealth Government into five departments, to wit: the Department of Finance; the Department of National Defense and Communications; the Department of Information and Public Relations; the Department of Justice, Labor and Welfare; and the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, which shall be under the direct control of the respective secretaries of department, exercising their functions subject to the general supervision and control of the President.

All powers of direction, supervision and control over any office which does not come under the jurisdiction of any of the departments enumerated above shall be exercised by the President or by any Department Secretary whom the President may designate.

DONE at the City of Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America, this eighth day of August, in the year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Four, and of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the ninth.