September 2, 1901
ACT NO. 218
AN ACT CREATING A BUREAU OF PUBLIC LANDS
SECTION 1. There is hereby created, under the Department of the Interior, an Insular Bureau of Public Lands, which shall have charge of all of the public domain of the Government of the Philippine Islands, except so far as control thereof may be necessary to the functions of the Forestry and Mining Bureaus, which shall not be affected by this Act. Under the supervision of the Bureau of Public Lands shall be executed all instruments for the sale or conveyance of the public lands when authorized by law.
SECTION 2. There shall be a chief of the Bureau of Public Lands, who shall receive an annual salary of three thousand two hundred dollars, payable monthly in money of the United States.
SECTION 3. The duties of the Chief of the Bureau of Public Lands shall be —
1. To collect and safely keep all existing Spanish records relating to the public lands or their conveyances;
2. After due consideration, to submit to the Philippine Commission a plan for the organization of the Bureau framed as nearly as may be after the organization of the Public Land Office in the United States, with such variations as may be required by differing conditions, having regard to the former land system under the Spanish sovereignty, and also a plan for the general survey of the public lands;
3. To supervise the surveys of all public lands that may be required by law;
4. To cause an investigation to be made as to the extent and quality of the public lands in all the islands of the Archipelago, and to report the same to the head of the Department;
5. To discharge all other duties in connection with the public lands assigned to him by the Secretary of the Interior.
SECTION 4. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with section two of "An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of laws," passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.
SECTION 5. This Act shall take effect on its passage.
Enacted, September 2, 1901.