[ Act No. 726, April 07, 1903 ]

AN ACT DEFINING THE PROCEDURE TO BE FOLLOWED IN THE APPORTIONMENT OF THE ASSETS OF EXISTING MUNICIPALITIES WHICH MAY BE CONSOLIDATED OR DIVIDED BY THE FORMATION OF NEW MUNICIPALITIES, OR BY ANNEXATION TO OTHER EXISTING MUNICIPALITIES.

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

SECTION 1. In all cases in which two or more municipalities organized under the Municipal Code shall be united by Act of the Commission if shall be the duty of the provincial treasurer of the province in which such municipalities are located to examine the treasurer of the municipal treasurer of each of the municipalities united, to audit his accounts, and to receive from each municipal treasurer the amounts of money remaining in the treasury of the municipality. The amounts thus received, when covered into the provincial treasury, shall he paid out by the provincial treasurer to the municipal treasurer of the new consolidated municipality.

SEC. 2. Whenever one or more barrios, or any other part of an existing municipality, shall he separated from such existing municipality, either to form a new municipality or to be added to another existing municipality, or in cases of the consolidation of parts of two or more municipalities into a new municipality, or in cases in which an old municipality is divided and a portion thereof assigned to one new municipality and a portion to another, it shall be the duty of the provincial board equitably to divide the funds on deposit in the treasury of the existing municipality to be divided, and the taxes payable to such municipality and uncollected, and to apportion both the funds and the taxes to the parts of the divided municipality as equity may require, having such regard as may seem proper to the amount of taxes produced by the respective parts of the municipality whose territory is divided. In case any municipality affected shall be aggrieved by the disposition made of such funds or taxes an appeal may be taken within twenty days after the action of the provincial board from the decision of the provincial board to the Civil Governor, whose decision shall be final.

SEC. 3. 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. 4. This Act shall take effect on its passage, but shall apply to all cases of division of municipalities as provided in section two whether the same be now provided for by law or shall hereafter be provided for by law.

Enacted, April 7, 1903.