WHEREAS, it is in the interest of justice that a Committee he created to consider various petitions for reconsideration from those officials and employees who were separated from the service on September 19, 1975 and to conduct a review of all .the cases of these officials and employees;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby create a Committee to take congnizance of petitions for reconsideration of the officials and employees dismissed on September 19, 1975, and to conduct a review of all the cases of these officials and employees;

SECTION 1. The Committee shall be composed of the following:

Honorable Catalino Macaraig	-	Chairman
Undersecretary of Justice
Honorable Jose A. R.Melo	-	Member
Civil Service Commissioner
Honorable Ronaldo B. Zamora	-	Member
Assistant Executive Secretary

SECTION 2. The Committee shall review all cases of the dismissed officials and employees, evaluating the evidence available in support of their dismissal, or receiving additional evidence in support thereof as well as the evidences that an official or employee may wish to present in support of his innocence of or exoneration from the charges against him;

SECTION 3. In case no evidence in support of the dismissal has been submitted or are in the possession of the official who recommended the dismisal, the Committee shall require the official to produce the evidence, and if he cannot produce the evidence required, the Committee shall require him to explain his recommendation for the dismissal of official or employee.

SECTION 4. The Committee shall directly report to the President its findings and recommendations, either affirming the dismissal or modifying the earlier order of dismissal by reducing the penalty imposed and imposing the proper penalty prescribed by law, including exoneration, if such is the proper course, guided by the desire to do justice. It shall act expeditiously on these cases and in the performance of its task it may call upon any official or employee, office or agency of the government to assist it.

SECTION 5. It shall have jurisdiction over the cases of all the officials or employees included in the September 19, 1975 list, except those who are appointed by the President.

SECTION 6. In the consideration of the cases, it shall give priority to those that are brought to it in an appeal or petition for reconsideration or review. It is hereby ordered that all appeals which may have been filed with the Office of the President, the department, bureaus and other agencies of the government be forwarded immediately to the Committee.

It may, in the exercise of its discretion, consider that failure of a dismissed employee or official to appeal or file a petition for reconsideration or review as an admission by the official or employee of his guilt.

DONE in the City of Manila, this 24th day of October, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-five.


By the President:
(Sgd.) ALEJANDRO MELCHOR
Executive Secretary