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

Section 1. The following is hcrebv added to the end of section seven of Act Numbered Eleven hundred and twenty:

"Provided, That the failure on the part of the occupants to state their desire to lease or state their desire to tease or purchase said lands shall not be understood to mean that they do not desire to acquire them.   In case of such failure it shall lie the duty of the  Director of Lands, or his agents, to enjoin such occupants to state their desire in writing within the period of eight days from the date of such injunction," and their failure to do so shall  lie understood to mean that such occupants do not desire either to lease or to purchase said lands.  The Director of Lands shall neither lease nor sell the said lands to any other person until the foregoing requirements shall have been complied with, and any contracts of lease or of sale hereafter executed without them shall be null and  void."

SEC. 2. Section nine of Act Numbered Eleven hundred and twenty, as amended by Act Numbered Eighteen hundred and forty-seven, is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC.  9. In the event the  Director of Lands should  find any of said lands vacant, he is directed to take possession and charge thereof, and he may either lease such unoccupied lands for a term not exceeding three years, or sell same, as may be solicited, and in making such leases or such sales he shall proceed, as provided in section eleven of this Act."

SEC.  3. Paragraph  two of section eleven of the said Act, as amended by Act Numbered Eighfeen hundred and  forty-seven, is hereby amended to read as follows:

"In case of lease of vacant lands, as well as in case of sale of same under the provisions of section nine of this Act, the Director of Lands shall notify the municipal president or municipal presidents of the municipality or municipalities  in  which said lands lie before the same takes place.   Upon receipt of such notification by said municipal president or municipal presidents the latter shall  by publish  the same for three consecutive days,  by bandillos, in the poblacion and barrio or barrios affected, and shall certify all these acts to the Director  of Lands who shall then,  and not before, proceed to execute the contract of lease or to make the said sale with preference, other conditions being equal, to the purchaser who has been a tenant or bona fide occupant  at any time of the said lands or part thereof, and if there has been  more than one piece occupant to the last tenant or occupant: Provided, however, That no contract for the lease of and no sale of vacant lands made in accordance with this section shall be valid nor of any effect without the requisite as to publication bv bandillos above provided."

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

Enacted, May 20, 1909.