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

SECTION 1. Section six of Act Numbered  Four hundred and ninety-six, the Land Registration Act is hereby amended by adding at the end thereof, the following words:

"Any judge at large of the Court of First Instance, appointed by virtue of Act Numbered Three hundred and ninety-six, may likewise be required to perform the duties of judge of the Court of Land Registration in any province in the Philippine Islands or in the city of Manila, when directed in writing to do so by the Civil Governor, in which case his acts, proceedings, and judgments shall be of the same validity as though he were a regular judge or associate judge of the Court of Land Registration in the city of Manila or in the province in which he shall perform such duties. In case such order is given, the judge performing duties as judge of the Court of Land Registration shall receive an allowance for traveling expenses in the same manner and to the same extent as he would receive if performing the duties of a judge of the Court of First Instance."

SEC. 2. Section twelve of said Act is hereby amended by striking out the word "fifteen" in the third line thereof and by adding at the end thereof the following words:

"In case no examiner of titles has been appointed for a judicial district, or in other eases where such action is deemed advisable, the Secretary of Finance and Justice may issue an order that the register of deeds or the provincial fiscal of any province shall perform the duties of examiner of titles within his province, either permanently or until a regular examiner of titles shall lie appointed for the judicial district within which the province lies; such order may be revoked at any time by the Secretary of Finance and Justice. In case such order is issued, the register of deeds or the provincial fiscal, as the case may be shall be entitled, in addition to his regular salary as register of deeds or as fiscal, to receive from the clerk of the court one-half the fee of five dollars provided by law for an examination of title, and the remainder of the fee and the percentage on the value of the land shall be paid into the Insular Treasury, notwithstanding the provisions of section thirteen of this Act or any other provisions of existing law."

SEC. 3. The first sentence of section thirteen of said Act is hereby amended to read as follows:

"The salary of the judge of the Court of Land Registration shall be five thousand dollars per annum, and that of the associate judge shall be four thousand dollars per annum until the first day of January, nineteen hundred and five, and thereafter four thousand five hundred dollars per annum, and that of the clerk of the court shall be two thousand five hundred dollars per annum, the salary of any associate judge hereafter appointed under this Act shall be four thousand dollars per annum for the first two years of service as associate judge, and thereafter four thousand five hundred dollars."

SEC. 4. Section fourteen of said Act is hereby repealed and a new section  fourteen is hereby inserted, to read as follows:

"SEC. 14. Every order, decision, and decree of the Court of Land Registration may be reviewed by the Supreme Court in the same manner as an order, decision, decree, or judgment of a Court of First Instance might be reviewed, and for that purpose sections one hundred and forty-one, one hundred and forty-two one hundred and forty-three, four hundred and ninety-six, four hundred and ninety-seven except that portion thereof relating to assessors, four hundred and ninety-nine, five hundred, five hundred and one, five hundred and two, five hundred and three, five hundred and four, five hundred and five, five hundred and six, five hundred and seven, five hundred and eight, five hundred, and nine, five hundred and eleven, five hundred and twelve, five hundred and thirteen, five hundred and fourteen, five hundred and fifteen, five hundred and sixteen, and five hundred and seventeen of Act Numbered One hundred and ninety, entitled 'An Act providing a Code of Procedure in civil actions and special proceedings in the Philippine Islands,' are made applicable to all the proceedings of the Court of Land Registration and to a review thereof by the Supreme Court, except as otherwise provided in this section: Provided, however, That no certificates of title shall be issued by the Court of Land Registration until after the expiration of the period for perfecting a bill of exceptions for filing: And Provided further, That the Court of Land Registration may grant a new trial in any case that has not passed to the Supreme Court, in the manner and under the circumstances provided in sections one hundred and forty-five, one hundred and forty-six, and one hundred and forty-seven of Act Numbered One hundred and ninety: And provided also, That the certificates of judgment to be issued by the Supreme Court, in cases passing to it from the Court of Land Registration, shall be certified to the clerk of the last-named court as well as the copies of the opinion of the Supremo Court: And provided also, That in the bill of exceptions to be printed no testimony or exhibits shall be printed except such limited portions thereof as are necessary to enable the Supremo Court to understand the points of law reserved. The original testimony and exhibits shall be transmitted to the Supreme Court.

"(a) Where the associate judges, or the judge and an associate judge, sitting together in any proceeding in the Court of Land Registration, shall disagree as to any decision, they shall certify the fact of their disagreement and the record to the Supreme Court of the. Islands, which shall thereupon proceed to examine the case and issue a mandate to the Court of Land Registration as to the judgment that should be rendered."

SEC. 5. Section seventeen of said Act is hereby amended by inserting in the fourth line, after the words "in the Courts of First Instance" and before the words "and, upon the request of the judge of the Court of Land Registration," the following words: "including a writ of possession directing the governor or sheriff, of any province or of the city of Manila to place the applicant in possession of the property covered by a decree of the court in his favor," and by adding at the end of said section the following words: The governor or sheriff of the province who shall, in person or by his deputy, attend the sittings of the court in any province outside the city of Manila, in accordance with the provisions of this section, shall be allowed three dollars per day, in money of the United States, for each day the court is in session in his province for attendance by himself and necessary deputies. This allowance shall be in addition to the fees for service of process, and shall be paid from the provincial treasury.

SEC. 6. Section nineteen of said Act is hereby amended by adding at the end of the fourth paragraph thereof the following:

"The Government of the United States, or of the Philippine Islands, or of any province or municipality therein, may make application through any agency by it respectively and duly authorized. Foreign corporations may apply for and secure registration of title to lands in the name of the corporation, subject only to the limitations applied or to be applied to domestic corporations. Article eighteen of the royal decree of February thirteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-four, concerning the adjustment and sale of public lands in the Philippine Islands, and article seventy-seven of the regulations for the execution of the same, together with any other provision or provisions of existing law limiting or prohibiting the holding of land in the Philippine Islands by aliens or by foreign associations, companies, or commercial bodies, are hereby repealed."

Section nineteen of said Act is further amended by adding after subsection (d) the following paragraph:

“(e) Instruments known as pacto de recto, made under sections fifteen hundred and seven and fifteen hundred and twenty of the Spanish Civil Code in force in these Islands, may be registered under this Act, and application for registration thereof may be made by the owner who executed the pacto de recto, sale under the same conditions and in the same manner as mortgagors are authorized to make application for registration."

SEC. 7. Section twenty-four of said Act is hereby amended by changing the first sentence thereof to read as follows:

"SEC. 24. The application may include two or more contiguous parcels of land, or two or more parcels constituting one holding under one and the same title, if within the same province or city, and likewise two or more parcels constituting one holding and within the same province or city, though not under one and the same title, nor contiguous, in cases where neither of the several parcels of land included in the one application exceeds one hundred dollars in value."

SEC. 8. Section thirty-six of said Act is hereby amended by adding at the end thereof the following words: The surveying required by the provisions of this section, or by any rules and directions of the Court of Land Registration, and the drafting of any plans required, may be done by any private surveyor of sufficient qualifications, to be, approved by the judges of the Court of Land Registration or by a surveyor or surveyors to be detailed for that purpose from the clerical force authorized by law for the Court of Land Registration, whose duty it is hereby made to provide in its clerical force a sufficient number of competent surveyors for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this section. The judges of the Court of Land Registration shall fix in each case the fee to be charged for the expense of a survey and necessary drafting, which shall be paid by the applicant, or apportioned among the parties, as justice may require. The fees so charged shall be paid info the Insular Treasury, except in cases where a private surveyor to be approved by the judges is employed.

SEC. 9. Section one hundred and fourteen of said Act is hereby, amended by adding at the end thereof the following:

"The fee thus collected shall be apportioned as follows: After payment by the clerk of cost of publication where the property is situated in the city of Manila, and of sheriffs fees where situated outside of the city of Manila, and also the examiner's fee where the examination has been made by a fiscal or register under section one of this Act, the remainder shall be deposited by the clerk of the court, one-half to the credit of the Insular Government and one-half to the credit of the city of Manila or of the province where the land lies, as the case may be, the amount in the latter case to be remitted to the treasurer of the particular province interested.

The clerk in each such instance shall furnish a certificate to the register of deeds and sheriff of the city of Manila, or to the register of deeds of a province, as the case may be, setting forth the special character of the applicant, which certificate shall be authority for a waiver of his usual fees by the sheriff of the city of Manila and for the free entry of the original certificate of title and the issuance of one duplicate thereof by the registers of deeds."

SEC. 10. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, the 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.

SEC. 11. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, April 5, 1904.