Preamble
By authority of the United States, be it enacted by the Philippine Commission, that: Whereas the Act of Congress, approved July first, nineteen hundred and two, entitled "An Act temporarily to provide for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes," provides in section four thereof "That all inhabitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside therein who were Spanish subjects on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and then resided in said Islands, and their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of the Philippine Islands and as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain signed at Paris December tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight: