Whereas, for sometime now it has been noted that laborers have been demanding of their employers a raise in their wages, such demands being usually followed by strikes, and that when granted, other laborers present similar demands;

Whereas, such procedure creates an unnecessary disturbance in the relations between labor and capital and hinders industrial peace and progress, to the detriment of public welfare; and

Whereas, it is of utmost importance that industry and commerce be given such stability as to insure their progressive growth and at the same time allow the laborers to earn adequate wages, considering the conditions that now obtain, so that they may meet their essential necessities and those of their dependents:

Now, therefore, pursuant to the authority vested in me by Section Five of Commonwealth Act Numbered One Hundred and Three, I, Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippines, do hereby order and direct the Court of Industrial Relations to make an immediate investigation and study of all pertinent facts related to private industrial and commercial enterprises located in and around the City of Manila which employs more than thirty laborers, with a view to determining the necessity and fairness of fixing and adopting therefor a minimum wage for their laborers; and, in accordance with the procedure prescribed in said section, to submit its decision to the President for approval.

Done at the City of Manila, this 22nd day of June, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight, and of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the third.