Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Legislature assembled and by the authority of the same:

SECTION 1. Section eleven hundred and seventy-six of the Administrative  Code of nineteen hundred and seventeen as amended by Act Numbered Thirty hundred  and eighty-four, is  hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 1176. Investigation into character of vessel.— No application for a certificate of Philippine register shall be approved until the Collector of Customs is satisfied from an inspection of the vessel that it is engaged or destined tobe engaged in legitimate trade and that it is of domestic ownership as such ownership is defined in section eleven hundred and seventy-two of this Code.               

"A Collector may at any time inspect a vessel or examine its owner, master, crew, or passenger in order to ascertain whether the vessel is engaged in legitimate trade and is entitled to have or retain the certificate of Philippine Register.

"The Collector of Customs may at any time make an" administrative investigation as to the ownership or title of any vessel engaged in the coastwise trade and whether such title or ownership is in accordance with the requirements of this  Act; and any vessel chartered, sold, transferred, or mortgaged to any person not a citizen of the United States or the Philippine Islands without previous permission of the Insular Collector of Customs or put under foreign register or flag without such permission or operated in violation of any of the provisions of this Act, shall be seized by the Government of the Philippine Islands; and any person, corporation, company, or association violating any of the provisions of this Act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine of not more than five thousand pesos or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both: Provided, That in the event the person guilty of such violation is a corporation, company or association, the manager or, in his default, the president thereof shall be criminally responsible for such violation."

SEC.  2. This Act shall take effect on its approval.

Approved, December 4, 1926.