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. A new section is hereby inserted between sections twenty-two hundred and nineteen and twenty-two hundred and twenty of the Administrative Code which shall be known as section twenty-two hundred and nineteen and one-half and shall read as follows:

"SEC. 2219 1/2. Each barrio or rural subdivision with a barrio lieutenant shall also have four rural councilmen who shall be appointed in the same manner as the barrio lieutenants. These rural councilmen shall be duly qualified electors of the place. Their chairman shall be the barrio lieutenant or, in his absence or inability, the substitute lieutenant. They shall serve without compensation. Their term of office shall be fixed in their appointment. The officer who appointed them may, however, remove them or suspend them from office, for cause. They shall, together with the barrio lieutenant and substitute lieutenant, form an organization which shall be known as rural council and shall have the following duties and powers: (a) to represent the barrio or portion of barrio where it is located, in cases in which such representation is not incompatible with the personality of the municipal council; (b) to hold a regular session once a month; (c) to make their own rules of procedure which shall be approved by the councilor of the place before they take effect; (d) to submit to the municipal council, through said councilor, such suggestions or recommendations as they may see fit for improvements in their place or for the welfare of the inhabitants thereof; (e) to provide for the publication by town crier or such other means as they may see fit, of new laws and municipal ordinances they may consider as important; (f) to organize at least three times a year civic lectures tending to generalize information concerning the duties and rights of citizenship; and (g) to offer to the Government the cooperation necessary locally for the success of measures of general interest. The rural councilmen may hold their sessions in the public school building of the place during hours when there are no classes, or in any house ox lot in the barrio the provisional or permanent use of which may be granted to them for said purpose free of charge; and shall elect from among their number a secretary who shall prepare short minutes of the proceedings of the council and draft the recommendations or suggestions to be submitted by the same to the municipal council, in either of the official languages of the country or in the local dialect."

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

Approved, November 13, 1931.