Supreme Court E-Library
Information At Your Fingertips

SECTION 1. There is hereby created a Board of Examiners for Surveyors which shall be composed of five members appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the majority of whom shall be private surveyors. 

Upon their designation, the members of the Board of Examiners for Surveyors shall elect from among their number a chairman who shall be executive officer of the Board, and  a secretary-treasurer. Subsequent elections of officers shall be held annually, upon the appointment of one of the members of the Board, as hereinafter provided. 

The members of the Board of Examiners for Surveyors shall have the following qualifications:  

1. Be of good moral conduct; 
    
2. Be twenty-five years of age; 
   
   
3. Have graduated in surveying from a college, school, or university recognized by the Government or have qualified as surveyor in a Civil Service examination or before the Board of Examiners created by the Bureau of Lands, prior to the approval of this Act, and have a diploma as deputy or cadastral land surveyor; 
   
   
4. Have practised surveying either privately or in the Government service for a period of not less than five years previous to his appointment;
    
5. Not be a member of the faculty of any school, college, or university recognized by the Government, teaching any branch of surveying; and 
   
   
6. Not have any pecuniary interest in any of said institutions. 

SEC. 2. Each member of the Board shall hold office for three years from the date of his appointment, the terms of the first three appointees being so adjusted that one shall expire on December thirty-first of each year. Any vacancies occurring in the course of the year shall be filled by appointment for the unexpired portion of the term of office only. 

SEC. 3. Each person appointed member of the Board of Examiners, before entering upon the performance of the duties of his office, shall take and subscribe the following oath: "I, ..................................., having been appointed a member of the Board of Examiners for Surveyors of the Philippine Islands, do hereby solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have been practising the profession of surveyor since the year .......................; That I will well and truly perform the duties of my office; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Government of the United States of America and to the Government of the Philippine Islands; and that I take this oath (or affirmation) without any mental reservation whatsoever. So help me God." This oath shall be recorded and filed in the office of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources. 

SEC. 4. The Board of Examiners for Surveyors shall charge for each application for examination the sum of twenty-five pesos and for each certificate of registration or license to practise the sum of fifteen pesos. 

The Board of Examiners shall be under the Department  of Agriculture and Natural Resources and is hereby authorized to issue regulations governing its examinations and  fixing passing grades, and, in general, all rules for the compliance of the provisions of this Act. Said rules, upon being approved by the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources, shall have the force of law. 

SEC. 5. The secretary-treasurer of the Board shall receive from insular funds a compensation of three hundred pesos per annum and the other members of the Board shall receive, likewise from insular funds, the sum of five pesos each for each candidate for examination for registration as surveyor. 

The secretary-treasurer shall keep a record of the proceedings of the Board, an account book and a register of the persons to whom licenses have been issued, setting forth the name, age, marital condition, residence, post-office address, and the name of the institution in which he studied and from which he graduated. The Board of Examiners shall, during the first fifteen days of January of each year, present to the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources a detail report of all its work during the year. 

SEC. 6. The Board of Examiners for Surveyors shall meet in the City of Manila for the purpose of holding examinations, on the first Tuesday not a holiday of June of each year, upon at least thirty days notice published in two of the most widely read newspapers of the capital, one in English and the other in Spanish. 

The Board of Examiners shall hold three kinds of examination for the practice of surveying, to wit: 

1. For isolated surveys of private land for registration purposes, public lands, topographic and hydrographic surveys, levelling, and subdivisions; 
   
   
2.  For cadastral surveys; and 
   
   
3.  For mineral surveys. 

Candidates for surveyor may take these three kinds of examinations at once or separately, provided they have the  following qualifications: 

1. Be twenty years of age or over:
    
2. Be of good moral conduct;
    
3. Have diplomas or certificates showing the holder to have completed four years of high school or their equivalent and have studied and practised the following subjects in a school, college, or university duly constituted and recognized as such by the Government, for three years:    

1. Algebra;   
   
2. Plane and sphere geometry;   
   
3. Plane and sphere trigonometry;   
   
4. Fundamental principles of physics and theory of the lense;   
   
5. Drawing and making plans, including the system of coordinates;   
   
6. Astronomy, on observation and computation of the position of the sun, polars, and stars;   
   
7. Theory, fundamental principles and use of the stadia;   
   
8. Direct and indirect measuring of distances with stadia and chain;   
   
9. Surveys with compass or alidade and stadia;    
   
10. Topographic and hydrographic surveys;   
   
11. Levelling;    
   
12. Use and manipulation of transit, compass, and telescopes for levelling;   
   
13. Surveying of mineral lands;   
   
14. Surveying of land under the cadastral system;   
   
15. System of land surveying in the United States;   
   
16. Regulations, cadastral and public land laws governing land surveys in the Philippine Islands, mining laws, and any other subjects prescribed by the Board in the regulations issued by it.

SEC. 7. The Board of Examiners for Surveyors shall issue a certificate of registration to persons who have qualified in the examinations held by said Board, which certificate shall entitle the holder to practise surveying in the Philippine Islands. These certificates of registration may be cancelled by the Board for the cause hereinafter enumerated.

SEC. 8. The Board of Examiners shall issue a certificate or license to practise surveying, without previous examination, to persons who, on the date of the approval of this Act:

1. Have passed the Civil Service or Bureau of Lands examinations for surveyor, according to the rating obtained by them in said examinations;
   
   
2. Have been authorized to practise surveying by the Director of Lands.

SEC. 9. All persons who shall, before this Act takes feet, have taken any examination for the practice of by veying held by the Civil Service or the Bureau of Lands and have failed to obtain the necessary average to qualify as such, may take the examination before the Board of Examiners created by this Act subject to the same conditions under which they were admitted to examination m f the Civil Service or the Bureau of Lands, until June, nineteen hundred and thirty. If at the expiration of this period they have not been successful in obtaining a passing grade in their examination, they shall be obliged to take the examination under the provisions of this Act.       

SEC. 10. The Board of Examiners may revoke the license or certificate as practising surveyor granted to any person in case the same has been convicted by any court of a crime involving moral turpitude, if he has been guilty of immoral and dishonest conduct, if he is mentally incapacitated, or for unprofessional conduct. The decision of the Board shall be rendered after an investigation in which the accused shall be heard, and said accused may appeal to the Department head, whose decision shall be final administratively.   

SEC. 11. It shall be unlawful for any person to advertise as surveyor or practise as such without being in possession of the proper certificate or license issued by the Board of Examiners for Surveyors. A person shall be held to practise surveying not only if he prepares the plan of a piece of land for registration in the register of property, but also if he does any work in which transit and chain are used, whether such work be for public or for private purposes.   

SEC. 12. The violation of any of the provisions of this Act and of the regulations hereunder shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand pesos or by subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.   

SEC. 13. The sum of one thousand pesos is hereby appropriated, out of any funds in the Insular Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be placed at the disposal of the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources for disbursement in accordance with the provisions of this Act.   

SEC. 14. Sections eighteen hundred and sixty-three, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, and eighteen hundred and sixty-five, the latter as amended by Act Numbered Three thousand and ninety-two, of Act Numbered Twenty-seven hundred and eleven known as the Administrative Code, and any acts or part of acts inconsistent with the provisions hereof, are hereby repealed.   

SEC. 15. This Act shall take effect on its approval.

Approved, December 5, 1929.