Act No. 222

[NO. 222]

An Act Providing for the organization of the Departments of the Interior, of Commerce and Police, of Finance and Justice, and of Public Instruction.

By authority of the President of the United States, be it enacted by the United States Philippine Commission, that:

SECTION 1.
Whereas, the President of the United States, through the Secretary of War, has directed the establishment of four departments, to-wit: the Department of the Interior, the Department of Commerce and Police, the Department of Finance and Justice, and the Department of Public Instruction and has appointed persons to be secretaries or heads of such departments. Now, therefore,

The Department of the Interior shall embrace within its executive control the Bureau of Health, the Quarantine Service of the Marine Hospital Corps, the Bureau of Forestry, the Bureau of Mining, a Bureau of Agriculture, a Bureau of Fisheries, the Weather Bureau, a Bureau of Pagan and Mohammedan Tribes, the Bureau of Public Lands, the Bureau of Government Laboratories, and the Bureau of Patents and Copyrights.

SEC. 2.
The Department of Commerce and Police shall have under its executive control a Bureau of Island and Inter-Island Transportation, the Bureau of Post Offices, the Bureau of Telegraphs, the Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey, a Bureau of Engineering and Construction of Public Works other than Public Buildings, a Bureau of Insular Constabulary, a Bureau of Prisons, a Bureau of Light Houses, a Bureau of Commercial and Street Railroad Corporations and all Corporations except Banking.

SEC. 3.
The Department of Finance and Justice shall embrace within its executive control the Bureau of the Insular Treasury, the Bureau of the Insular Auditor, the Bureau of Customs and Immigration, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Insular Cold Storage and Ice Plant, a Bureau of Banks, Banking, Coinage and Currency, and the Bureau of Justice.

SEC. 4.
The Department of Public Instruction shall embrace under its executive control the Bureau of Public Instruction, a Bureau of Public Charities, Public Libraries and Museums, the Bureau of Statistics, a Bureau of Public Records, a Bureau of Public Printing, and a Bureau of Architecture and Construction of Public Buildings.

SEC. 5.
The secretaries of the departments described in the foregoing sections shall exercise the executive control therein conferred, under the general supervision of the Civil Governor. The executive control vested by law, however, in the central government over provincial and municipal governments and the civil service, shall be exercised directly by the Civil Governor through the Executive Secretary.

SEC. 6.
The officers and subordinates of each department shall consist of the secretary and such assistant clerks and other employés as may be provided by law. The official correspondence of the head of each department may be recorded by direction of the head of the department in the office of the Executive Secretary, and such clerical work as may be needed in each of the departments and as may be conveniently done in the office of the Executive Secretary shall be there done by direction of the head of each department.

SEC. 7.
Nothing in this act contained in respect to the executive control by the department of Finance and Justice over the office of Insular Auditor and the office of Insular Treasurer shall affect the powers of those officers conferred by Act No. 90, and the independence of judgment to be exercised by the Auditor in auditing and adjudicating the validity of accounts presented to him in accordance with law.

SEC. 8.
The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with section 2 of "An Act Prescribing the Order of Procedure by the Commission in the Enactment of Laws," passed September 26, 1900.

SEC. 9.
This act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, September 6, 1901.