Free areas.
Article 14
ART. 14. Free areas.—All lands within the territorial limits of the Philippines including those submerged beneath seas, bays, lakes, rivers, lagoons, or the territorial waters, or on the continental shelf, or its analogue in an archipelago, put which are not within the National Reserve Areas, or Petroleum Reservations, or covered by valid and existing Exploration or Exploitation Concession, or Petroleum Drilling Leases acquired under the Petroleum Act (Act No. 2932), or of petroleum mining claims located and held under the Act of Congress of July first, nineteen hundred and two, as amended, are called Free Areas and as such are open to application for Exploration Concession by any duly qualified person. Application for said areas shall be filed with the Director of Mines in accordance with the provisions of article twenty-eight of this Act.