WHEREAS, Republic Act No. 1379, popularly referred to as the Anti-Graft Law, decrees the forfeiture in favor of the State of any property found to have been unlawfully acquired by any public officer or employee, and provides for the proceedings therefor;

WHEREAS, the enforcement of said law is not only the sworn duty of the President but also a desideratum in the Administration ™s current drive against graft and corruption; and

WHEREAS, experience has shown that Republic Act No. 1379, far from being self-executing, requires the indispensable services of a working group that shall determine, investigate, and build up the cases against all those reasonably suspected or shown to have unlawfully acquired properties and/or amassed wealth while in public office;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Carlos P. Garcia, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby create an investigating group to be known as the Presidential Anti-Graft Committee to be composed of such personnel as the President may designate from time to time.

The primary function of the committee shall be to implement and enforce Republic Act No. 1379 by inquiring into, investigating, determining, and verifying any and all unlawfully acquired properties of government officials and employees, particularly in the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue and in government offices and institutions where similar investigations as those contemplated under this Executive Order have been started previously; and obtaining the needed evidence to established such unlawful acquisitions of property and/or other forms of wealth acquired by them while in public office.

The committee herein created is granted all the powers of an investigating committee under sections 71 and 580 of the Revised Administrative Code.

The committee is hereby authorized to call upon any department, bureau, office, agency, or instrumentality of the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations, for such clerical help, other assistance, and/or information as it may need in the performance of its func tions, and for this purpose, it shall have access to, and the right to examine, any books, documents, papers, or records thereof, subject to the limitations provided by law.

The committee is hereby directed to forward all its reports of investigations, findings, and recommendations, with all the supporting evidence and other papers relevant thereto, to the President of the Philippines.

Done in the City of Manila, this 18th day of February, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and sixty, and of the Independence of the Philippines, the fourteenth.


By the President:
(Sgd.) NATALIO P. CASTILLO
Executive Secretary