Bureau leadership and appointment
- Section 1 establishes a chief for the Bureau of non-Christian Tribes known as the Director of the Bureau of non-Christian Tribes.
- The Director is appointed by the Governor-General, with the consent of the Philippine Senate.
- The Director receives the salary fixed for the position by the Salary Law (Section 1).
- The Governor-General may designate another civil officer to assume the office of Director, with approval of the Senate, whenever he deems it advisable (Section 1).
- The civil officer designated to assume the Director office receives no additional compensation for assuming that office (Section 1).
Acting authority during absence/incapacity
- In case of the absence or temporary incapacity of the Director, the Under Secretary of the Interior takes charge of the Bureau (Section 1).
Scope: supervisory coverage and government areas
- Section 2 assigns the supervision and control over the provinces, municipalities, and other local political divisions previously covered by existing laws to the Bureau of non-Christian Tribes.
- The Bureau exercises this supervisory and control authority over areas of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, the Mountain Province, and the Province of Nueva Vizcaya (Section 2).
- The Bureau operates under the immediate executive authority, direction, and supervision of the Department of the Interior (Section 2).
Mandate: development and national integration goals
- Section 3 requires the Bureau to continue its work for the advancement and liberty of regions inhabited by non-Christian Filipinos.
- The Bureau must foster, by adequate means, the moral, material, economic, social, and political development of those regions.
- The development work must be conducted in a systematical, rapid, and complete manner (Section 3).
- The Bureau must always keep in view the aim of rendering permanent mutual intelligence and complete fusion of Christian and non-Christian elements populating the provinces of the Archipelago (Section 3).
Legal basis and predecessor institutional authority
- The Bureau of non-Christian Tribes is established under Section 22 of the Act of the Congress of the United States of August 29, 1916, titled “An Act to declare the purpose of the people of the United States as to the future political status of the people of the Philippine Islands, and to provide a more autonomous government for those Islands” (Section 1).