Directory_and_Chronicle_1931 — Page 1576

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PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

the Department of Commerce and Communications. With the exception of the Vice- Governor, who is appointed in the same way as the Governor-General and is at the same time Secretary of Public Instruction, all the other secretaries are Filipinos. Under each executive department are the different bureaus of the Government.

The Philippine legislative body is composed of two Houses-the Senate and the House of Representatives. There are in all 93 representatives and 24 senators, re- presenting the City of Manila and the 48 provinces of the archipelago, all of whom are elected by popular vote with the exception of nine representatives and two senators who are appointed by the Governor-General to represent the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya, Mountain Province, Agusan, Bukidnon, Cotabato, Davao, Lanao, Sulu and Zamboanga. The number of registered voters is approximately a million.

An extra-legal body, the Council of State, created by virtue of an executive order of the Governor-General, forms the binding link between the executive and the legislative branches of the insular Government, and represents the people's counsel in the administration of the government. The Council of State is composed of the Governor-General, as president, the Presidents of both Houses of the Legislature, and the Secretaries of the Departments.

The provincial and municipal governments are under the direct supervision of the Department of the Interior through the Executive Bureau and the Bureau of Non- Christian Tribes, the former exercising authority over the 37 regularly organ- ized provinces and two so-called special provinces of Batanes and Palawan, and the latter over nine specially organized provinces. The chief executive in each province is a provincial Governor, who is elected by popular suffrage except in five specially organized provinces under the Bureau of Non-Christian tribes, namely, Bukidnon, Cotabato, Lanao, Mountain Province and Sulu, where he is appointed by the Governor-General subject to confirmation by the Philippine Senate. With the Pro- vincial Governor are two other members of the Provincial Board, which constitutes the legislative branch of the provincial government. In all regularly organized provinces the two members of the Board are elected by popular vote. In cach of the specially organized provinces the Provincial Board is made up by the Provincial Governor, the Provincial Treasurer or the Provincial Secretary-Treasurer (who is an appointive official), and a third member who, in the case of the provinces of Batanes and Palawan, is elected by popular vote, and in the case of the specially organized pro- vinces under the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes is elected by the votes of the councillors and vice-presidents of municipalities and municipal districts. The municipal president is the chief executive in each town or municipality, and the local legislative branch is a municipal council of from 8 to 18 councillors, depending upon the number of inhabitants of the municipality. The president, the vice-president, and the council- lors are all elected by popular vote. In the special provinces under the B.N.C.T. there are still some municipalities with appointive presidents, but the vice-présidents and councillors are elective.

The Philippine judiciary system consists of the Supreme Court, as the highest tribunal; a Court of First Instance for each judicial district, except the ninth district, which has six judges, the same covering the city of Manila; the Municipal Courts of Manila and Baguio; and a Justice of the Peace court for each municipality. The Supreme Court is composed of one chief justice and eight associate justices, all of whom are appointed by the President of the United States with the consent of the United States Senate. The Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction over the Courts of First Instance. An appeal lies from the decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands to the Supreme Court of the United States in certain cases.

EDUCATION AND LITERACY

Public education in the Philippines is free, secular and co-educational, and the principal aim is to make the people socially efficient. As a means to this end, emphasis is placed upon the spread of literacy on the basis of a common language-English. The Bureau of Education maintains a complete system of public education. Public elementary and high schools are distributed throughout the Islands. Insular schools for special education are maintained. The enrolment of students in the public schools is increasing every year and now exeeds one million. Private schools, patterned after the public schools, besides the old Spanish schools and colleges which still survive, have sprung up in the Philippines in recent years. Practically all these offer instruction in