Supreme Court E-Library
Information At Your Fingertips

  View printer friendly version

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Legislature assembled and by the authority of the same:

SECTION 1. Section twelve hundred and thirty-six of Act Numbered Twenty-seven hundred and eleven, known as the Administrative Code, is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 1236. Stowaway arriving and leaving upon transport.—It shall be unlawful for any stowaway, not being a citizen of the Philippine Islands, to enter or attempt to enter the Philippine Islands from any vessel operated as a transport or supply ship of the United States Army arriving at any port of the Philippine Islands from any foreign port.

"It shall also be unlawful for every person who conceals or attempts to conceal himself upon or goes  on board any ship, vessel, launch, lighter, casco, or barge bound for a port of the United States or a foreign port, other than vessel used as a transport or supply ship of the United States Army, intending to obtain passage therein without payment of fare, and the aider or abetter of any such person shall be deemed to be a stowaway.

"For the purposes hereof, the term 'stowaway' shall include any person who has obtained transportation to the Philippine Islands, by deceit, concealment, evasion, or fraud, and without having paid or contracted to pay for such transportation, and who arrives in the Philippine  Islands without apparent means of subsistence or who at the time of his arrival is likely to become a public charge."

SEC. 2. Section twenty-seven  hundred and twelve of the same Act, is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 2712. Unlawful entry into and departure of stow-aways from the Philippine Islands.— Any stow-away arriving in the Philippine Islands in violation of section twelve hundred and thirty-six of this Code may be  arrested and detained, upon the direction of the Insular Collector of Customs, in any insular prison; and with the consent of the proper military authorities the Insular Collector shall cause such stowaway to be deported upon the first available transport of the United States Army. The detention of stow-away under the provisions of this section shall not extend beyond the time of sailing of the first transport to leave the Philippine Islands after the apprehension of such person as herein provided, and shall cease immediately after the military authorities notify the Collector of Customs that they are unwilling to take back  such stowaway. Upon the certificate of a medical officer to the effect that the health or safety of such person would be unduly imperiled by immediate deportation, such person may be held for treatment until such time as he may, in the opinion of such medical officer, be safely deported.

"Any person who shall become a stowaway in violation of the second paragraph of section twelve hundred and thirty-six of this Code shall upon conviction thereof be fined in a sum not exceeding one hundred pesos, or imprisonment for a period not exceeding one month, or by both such fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court."

SEC. 3. This Act shall take effect on its approval.

Approved, December 7, 1926.