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WHEREAS, Presidential Decree No. 295, dated September 18, 1973, amended Section 12 of Commonwealth Act No. 137, as amended, otherwise known as the Mining Act in as far as its application to Proclamation No. 391, dated March 13, 1939, as amended by Proclamation No. 721, dated July 9, 1970, is concerned, by declaring the commercial timber within some portions of the Surigao Mineral Reservation, as open and available for disposition and utilization;

WHEREAS, said Presidential Decree failed to include the portion of the reservation declared by Executive Order No. 63, dated June 25, 1914, of Governor General Francis Burton Harrison, the metes and bounds of which arc defined in said Executive Order;

WHEREAS, the remaining unreverted area of the Surigao Mineral Reservation covered by Executive Older No. 63, dated June 25, 1914, also contains valuable commercial timber;

WHEREAS, the purpose and intention of Presidential Decree No. 295, dated September 18, 1973, were to make available the timber in such reserved areas for disposition and utilization in order to hasten the social and economic development of Mindanao;

WHEREAS, in accordance with said purpose and intention, there is also a need to release the area covered by Executive Order No. 63, dated June 25, 1914 ; and

WHEREAS, Section 12 of Commonwealth Act No. 137, as amended, limits the disposition for mining purposes only of a land proclaimed as mineral reserve under Section 11 thereof;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Philippines, pursuant to Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972, and General Order No. 1, dated September 22, 1972, as amended, do hereby order and decree that Commonwealth Act No. 137, as amended, otherwise known as the Mining Act, shall be, as hereby it is amended, in as far as its application to Executive Order No. 63, dated June 24, 1914, is concerned, by declaring all commercial timber within the unreverted area covered by said Executive Order, as open and available for disposition and utilization, subject to existing rights, if any there be, and to existing policies, laws, rules and regulations pertinent thereto.

This Decree supplements Presidential Decree No. 295, dated September 18, 1973.

Done in the City of Manila, this 14th day of January, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-four.