WHEREAS, public welfare requires the immediate taking of possession and development of the private properties sought to be expropriated for socialized housing;

WHEREAS, doubts have also been expressed as to the extent of the power of the expropriating agency to take possession, control and disposition of the real property and the improvement thereon;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, do hereby order and declare that:

SECTION 1. Paragraph 3 of Presidential Decree No. 1259 dated December 11, 1977 which amends the same paragraph in Presidential Decree No. 1224 is hereby further amended to read as follows:

Upon the filing of the petition for expropriation and the deposit in the Philippine National Bank at its main office or any of its branches of the amount equivalent to ten percent (10%) of the just compensation provided for in Section 2 of Presidential Decree No. 1259, the government, or its authorized agency or entity, shall immediately have possession, control and disposition of the real property and the improvements thereon with the power of demolition, if necessary, even pending resolution of the issues that may be raised whether before the Court of First Instance, Court of Agrarian Relations, or the higher Courts.

SECTION 2. All acts, parts of acts, decrees, letters of instructions, orders, ordinances or rules and regulations which are inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed, amended or modified accordingly.

DONE in the City of Manila, this 20th day of March, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-eight.

			(Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS President of the Philippines
	By the President:
	(Sgd.) JACOBO C. CLAVE
		Presidential Executive Assistant