Act No. 1166 Loaning ₱8.8K to Sto. Tomas, Tanauan, and Lipa for the Improvement of Police Forces

By 1904, two years after the end of the Philippine-American War, with civil governance having returned to Batangas, there however remained the problem of brigands or, as they were known in Tagalog, tulisanes. Brigands had existed even during the Spanish era, but at the conclusion of the war, some of the brigands were pockets of former rebels who refused to accept American rule and continued to live outside the bands of civil society as “outlaws,” or at least from the point of view of the Americans.

To combat these brigands, the Philippine Commission passed Act Numbered 1166 in 1904 authorizing the loan of a sum of money to the municipalities of Lipa, Tanauan and Santo Tomas so that these may improve their police forces to combat groups of brigands operating within their premises.

The contents of the act are provided in their entirety below:

AN ACT Providing for a loan of eight thousand eight hundred pesos, Philippine currency. to the Province of Batangas, in order to enable the municipalities of Santo Tomas, Tanauan, and Lipa of that province to better their police force, which is to be under the supervision of the Senior Inspector of Constabulary, for the purpose of suppressing ladronism in that province.

By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that:

SECTION 1. There is hereby appropriated, out of any funds in the Insular Treasurv not otherwise appropriated, the sum of eight thousand eight hundred pesos, Philippine currency, to be loaned to the Province of Batangas, to be by it re-loaned to the municipalities of Santo Tomas, Tanauan, and Lipa in sums of two thousand four hundred, three thousand, and three thousand four hundred esos, Philippine currency, respectively, for the purpose of enabling them to better their police force, which is to be under the supervision of the Senior Inspector of Constabulary of the province, for the purpose of suppressing ladronism in that province.

SEC. 2. The money appropriated in the first section of this Act shall be paid to the treasurer of the Province of Batangas on the production by him to the Treasurer of the Philippine Islands of a certified copy of a resolution of the provincial board requesting such loan and agreeing to repay the money, without interest, within two years from the date of the loan. The money loaned by the Act shall be expended by the provincial board in the manner prescribed in the preceding section.

SEC. 3. The public good requiring the speedy enactment of this bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in accordance with section two of “An Act prescribing the order of procedure by the Commission in the enactment of laws,’ passed September twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred.

SEC. 4. This Act shall take effect on its passage.

Enacted, May 28, 1904.