WHEREAS, the new Constitution took effect on January 17, 1973 following its ratification by the Filipino people;

WHEREAS, thereunder, the Supreme Court shall be composed of a Chief Justice and fourteen Associate Justices;

WHEREAS, it is provided in Article X, Section 10 of the said Constitution that until the National Assembly shall provide otherwise, the Chief Justice shall receive an annual salary of seventy-five thousand pesos, and each Associate Justice, sixty thousand pesos;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Philippines and pursuant to Proclamation No. 1081 dated September 21, 1972, do hereby decree as follows:

SECTION 1. There is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the National Treasury not otherwise appropriated so much as may be necessary to implement Article X, Section 10 of the Constitution up to the end of the current fiscal year. Thereafter, the necessary appropriation therefor shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Decree.

SECTION 2. The payment of the salaries as provided in the Constitution and as funded herein shall retroact to January 17, 1973.

Done in the City of Manila, this 18th day January, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-three.

			(Sgd.) FERDINAND E. MARCOS
			President
			Republic of the Philippines
	By the President:
	(Sgd.) ALEJANDRO MELCHOR
		Executive Secretary