WHEREAS, it has been brought to my attention that the present maximum irrigation charge of P12 per hectare payable by landowners served by irrigation systems constructed under Act No. 2152, as amended, and operated and maintained by the Director of Public Works, has placed undue burdens upon landowners in many localities, especially in places where they do not get a fair return from their lands due to causes beyond human control; and

WHEREAS, it would be more just and equitable if the rates of irrigation charges were fixed on the basis of capacity of landowners to pay as well as the economic condition obtaining in the localities served by the above-mentioned irrigation systems;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Elpidio Quirino, President of the Philippines, pursuant to the authority vested in me by Commonwealth Act No. 87, and pending determination of the reasonable rates of charges that should be collected in the various irrigation systems of the Government, do hereby order the suspension for a period of one year of the collection of irrigation charges in excess of ?6 in the irrigation systems constructed under the provisions of Act No. 2152, as amended, and operated and maintained by the Director of Public Works, with the exception of the San Miguel Irrigation System in Tarlac Province.

Paragraph 8 of Executive Order No. 161, dated August 23, 1938, as amended by Executive Order No. 8, dated July 22, 1946, is hereby amended accordingly.

Done in the City of Manila, this 22nd day of June, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and forty-eight, and of the Independence of the Philippines, the second.


By the President:
(SGD.) EMILIO ABELLO
Executive Secretary