Amendment on Local Fiesta Date and Cockfighting Rules

Act No. 2377 is an amendment to Act No. 82 (the Municipal Code) by revising subsection (j) of Section Forty.
The amended authority specifically builds on amendments made to Section Forty by Acts Numbered Nineteen hundred and nine and Two thousand and fifty-four.
Section 2 repeals Acts Numbered Nineteen hundred and nine and Two thousand and fifty-four.

The Act authorizes municipal councils to fix and change the date of the local fiesta.
The municipal council must give preference to a date that is memorable and worthy of being commemorated due to an important event in the municipality, the province, the Philippine Archipelago, or generally in the history of the Philippine Islands or of the United States.

Municipal councils have authority to fix and change by resolution the date of the local fiesta.
Preference must be given to a date connected to an important event that is considered memorable and worthy of commemoration for local fiesta purposes.
A resolution changing the date of the local fiesta must be passed by two-thirds of all the members of the municipal council to be valid.
A resolution changing the date of the local fiesta already established must not be passed before the expiration of five years after the date was fixed.
A local fiesta must not be held oftener than once in each year.
A local fiesta must be held precisely on the date designated, unless a permitted exception applies.

A local fiesta may be held on another date in the same year when it cannot be held on the date fixed for weighty reasons.
Permitted weighty reasons include typhoons, inundations, earthquakes, epidemics, or other public calamities.
When the date cannot be followed due to these weighty reasons, the change to another date in the same year must be made by resolution of the council.

Municipal councils are empowered to regulate and permit or prohibit cockfighting.
Municipal councils are empowered to regulate the keeping or training of fighting cocks.
Municipal councils are empowered to close cockpits.
Cockfighting is permitted in licensed cockpits on legal holidays.
Cockfighting in licensed cockpits is also permitted for a period not to exceed three days during the celebration of the local fiesta.
Municipal councils must not permit any card games or games of chance of any kind on the premises of the cockpits.

Section 2 repeals Acts Numbered Nineteen hundred and nine and Two thousand and fifty-four.
Section 3 sets the effectivity: the Act takes effect upon its passage.