Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

108 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

such ordinances. If there is, they cannot be disapproved.
Therefore, as long as a municipality confines itself within the
province of its legal powers, it is absolutely free and independent; and neither the provincial board nor the Executive
Bureau is authorized to intervene. The possibility that the.
provincial board will abuse its authority in acting upon municipal ordinances and resolutions submitted to it, is further
reduced by the intervention of the provincial fiscal who, according to law, is the legal adviser of the provincial and municipal
governments and their officers. Ordinarily, the provincial
board before passing upon the legality of a municipal ordinance
or resolution refers the same to the provincial fiscal for opinion,
and almost invariably the provincial board acts in accordance
with the views of the fiscal. It should be observed, in this
connection, that even without any express provision of law to
that effect, a judicial tribunal may and will declare void any
ordinance of a municipal council for whose adoption there is
no statutory authority, whenever the validity of such an ordinance is involved in a case before such a tribunal. Our
present law, therefore, does nothing more than to provide a
more expeditious and less expensive way of having the illegal
ordinances of a municipal council annulled. The people are
assured of the validity of ordinances without resorting to the
courts or spending their time and money in litigations unless
of course they so desire.
While municipalities have great powers with reference to
local affairs, the Insular authorities, however, exact from such
governmental entities definite responsibility for all administrative acts and judge the efficiency of municipal officials by
the results. They hold the local governments to business-like
methods and to the standards of promptness and efficiency. It
may generally be stated that the surveillance now exercised is
advantageous rather than prejudicial and has proved to be a
wholesome preventive of lax and irregular methods.
When in 1921 the Wood-Forbes Mission came to the Phil- 4
ippines to investigate conditions here, it was the privilege of
the Philippine Columbian Association-whose members are
mostly young men educated in the United States and abroadto entertain the members thereof. The Philippine Question