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. Section forty-two of Act Numbered Twenty-eight hundred and seventy-four, known as the Public Land Act, is hereby amended to read as follows:

"Sec. 42. The Governor-General, upon recommendation by the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, shall from time to time fix by proclamation the period within which applications for free patents may be filed in the district, province, municipality, or region specified in such proclamation, and upon the expiration of the period so designated, unless the same be extended by the Governor-General, all the land comprised within such district, prov­ince, municipality, or region subject thereto under the provisions of this chapter may be disposed of as agricul­tural public land, without prejudice to the prior right of the occupant and cultivator to acquire such land under this Act by means other than free patent. The time to be fixed in the entire Archipelago for the filing of applications under this chapter shall not extend beyond December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight. The period fixed for any district, province, municipality, or region shall begin to run thirty days after the publication of the proclamation in the Official Gazette. A certified copy of said proclama­tion shall be furnished to the Director of Lands and to the provincial board and the municipal board or council af­fected, and copies thereof shall be posted on the bulletin board of the Bureau of Lands at Manila and at conspi­cuous places in the provincial building and the municipal building. It shall moreover, be announced by crier in each of the barrios of the municipality."

SEC. 2. Section forty-four of the same Act is hereby amended to read as follows:

"Sec. 44. The persons specified in the next following section are hereby granted time, not to extend beyond De­cember thirty-first, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight, within which to take advantage of the benefits of this chap­ter: Provided, That the several periods of time designated by the Governor-General in accordance with section forty-two of this Act shall apply also to the lands comprised in the provisions of this chapter; but this section shall not be construed in the sense of prohibiting any of said persons from acting under this chapter at any time prior to the period fixed by the Governor-General."

SEC. 3. Upon the express or implicit approval of this Act by the President of the United States, as provided in the Act of Congress approved on August twenty-ninth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, entitled "An Act to declare the purpose of the people of the United States as to the future political status of the people of the Philippine Is­lands, and to provide a more autonomous government for those Islands," the Governor-General shall so announce forthwith, by means of a proclamation, and this Act shall take effect on the date of such proclamation.

Approved, February 10, 1927.