WHEREAS, the Act of Congress of the United States of July 1, 1902, as, amended, otherwise known as the Philippine Bill of 1902, provides for a system of mineral disposition whereby patents or titles over minerals may be acquired in the manner prescribed by law for private lands;

WHEREAS, under the provisions of the Philippine Bill, the amount of labor or improvement required to be introduced on unpatented claims is P200 annually, to continue until the patent is granted; and the failure to perform such annual assessment work has the effect of opening a claim to relocation;

WHEREAS, at present there are still unpatented mining claims located under the provisions of said Bill, most of the holders of which are of the impression that they may hold on to their claims indefinitely by the mere filing of affidavits of annual assessment work, without obtaining patents for their claims;

WHEREAS, such impression is not correct, for what matters in maintaining and preserving possesory title to the claim is the continuous performance of the required assessment work, not the filing of an affidavit which may be disproved by findings on the ground;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby declare unpatented mining claims which were located more than thirty yearsago under the provisions of the Philippine Bill of 1902, as amended, and which have not complied with the annual assessment requirement, as abandoned and their declarations of location cancelled.

Done in the City of Manila, this 1st day or August, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and sixty-eight.


By the President:
(SGD.) RAFAEL M. SALAS
Executive Secretary