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

SECTION 1. Section seventeen of General Order Number Fifty-eight, issued from the office of the United States Military Governor in the Philippine Islands on the twenty-third day of April, nineteen hundred, relating to criminal procedure, is hereby amended by adding at the end thereof the following words:

"The counsel so employed or assigned must be a duly authorized member of the bar: Provided, nevertheless, That in provinces where duly authorized members of the bar are not available, the court may, in its discretion, admit or assign some person, resident in the province and of good repute for probity and ability, to act as counsel for the defendant, although the person so admitted or assigned be not a duly authorized member of the bar."

SEC. 2. 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. 3. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, August 4, 1902.