AMENDING PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 243, CREATING A PHILIPPINE VETERANS INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT COMPANY

WHEREAS, Presidential Decree No. 243, dated July 13, 1973,
created the Philippine Veterans Investment Development Company to direct
and look after the productive and investment possibilities coming from
the large number of veterans and retirees of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines; and

WHEREAS, in order that the purposes and objectives of the
said Philippine Veterans Investment Development Company can be
effectively and satisfactorily attained, it is necessary to amend
Presidential Decree No. 243 to enlarge the purposes and powers of the
Corporation, and delineate in detail its operation and structural
organization;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the
Philippines, by virtue of the powers in me vested by the Constitution as
Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and
pursuant to Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972, and General
Order No. 1, dated September 22, 1972, as amended, do hereby amend
Presidential Decree No. 243 as follows:

SECTION 1. The name of the corporation referred to in the
title of Presidential Decree No. 243 and its enacting clause is hereby
amended to read as follows: “Philippine Veterans Investment Development
Corporation.”

SEC. 2. Section 1 of the same Decree is hereby amended to
read as follows:

“SECTION 1. The Corporation shall be governed and its
activities shall be directed, controlled and managed by a Board of
Directors which shall be composed of the Secretary of National Defense
and the Executive Secretary as ex officio directors and five other
persons as regular directors to be appointed by the President of the
Philippines from a list of qualified veterans and retirees in good
standing submitted by the Secretary of National Defense. The Secretary
of National Defense and the Executive Secretary shall act as Chairman
and Vice-Chairman, respectively, of the Board of Directors; the members
of the Board of Directors, except the ex officio directors, shall
receive a per diem allowance of P100 for every meeting of the Board
actually attended by them.

“The term of office of each of the five regular directors shall
be three years with a right to hold over until a successor shall have
been duly appointed and qualified. Whenever a vacancy shall occur among
the regular directors, the person appointed to fill the vacancy shall
hold office for the unexpired term of the member whose place he is
selected to fill. The President of the Philippines may remove any
regular director for cause.

“The Board of Directors shall have the following powers:

“a. To prescribe, amend and repeal, with the approval of
the President of the Philippines, bylaws, rules and regulations
governing the manner in which the general business of the Corporation
may be conducted and the powers granted by law to the Corporation may be
exercised, including a provision for the formation of such committee or
committees as the Board of Directors may deem necessary to facilitate
its business;

“b. To establish such subsidiaries, branches and agencies as may
be deemed necessary and convenient;

“c. To provide for the appointment and removal and to fix the
reasonable compensation of such personnel, including financial, legal,
investment and other technical consultants, as may be necessary for the
expeditious conduct of the business of the Corporation. The officers and
employees of the Corporation shall not be subject to the Civil Service
Law and the rules and regulations of the Wage and Position
Classification Office and Section two hundred fifty-nine of the Revised
Administrative Code.

“No member of the Board of Directors shall in any manner,
directly or indirectly, participate in the deliberation upon or the
determination of any question affecting his personal interests, or the
interests of any corporation, partnership or association in which he is
directly or indirectly interested. Any director violating the provision
of this Section shall be summarily removed by the President of the
Philippines from office and shall upon conviction be punished with a
line not to exceed ten thousand pesos and with imprisonment not to
exceed five years.

SEC. 3. Section 2 of the same Decree is hereby amended to
read as follows:

“SEC. 2. The purposes and powers of the Corporation are:

“a. To engage in any commercial, industrial, mining,
agricultural and other enterprises which may be necessary or
contributory to the economic development of the country, or important in
the public interest, or which will promote the well-being of the
veterans and retirees of the Armed Forces of the Philippines;
“b. To invest in, purchase or otherwise acquire, own, hold, use,
operate, sell, assign, transfer, exchange, mortgage, pledge, lease,
develop and otherwise deal in real estate and natural resource projects
or any interest therein, and personal property of every kind and
description, including shares of stock, bonds, debentures, notes,
evidences of indebtedness, and other securities or obligations of any
other corporation or corporations, association or associations, domestic
or foreign, and for this purpose, it may acquire, lease or hold private
lands and public lands of any classification notwithstanding the
prohibitions in, or in excess of the areas permitted by the laws of the
Philippines;
“c. To provide a medium (1) for assisting Government and private
initiative in encouraging and/or promoting the establishment, operation,
expansion or reorganization of productive enterprises; (2) for
facilitating the formation of capital and the free flow of commercial
papers, securities, government bonds, and other evidence of indebtedness
in the capital and money markets and acting for this purpose as
underwriter, dealer and agent of commercial papers, securities,
government bonds and other evidence of indebtedness issued by government
institutions, agencies, subdivisions or instrumentalities, commercial,
industrial, or agricultural organizations, and other forms of business
ventures or organizations; (3) for rendering or promoting the rendering
of sound financial, economic and other technical advice to new
enterprises or assisting governmental or private entities; and (4) for
mobilizing the requisite manpower pool and the information gathering,
retrieval and distribution system that will adequately and efficiently
service the demands of Government, investors and business clients.
“d. To act as general or operating managers, representatives, or
agents of industrial, manufacturing and mercantile concerns of whatever
kind or nature, and to engage in the promotion, assistance,
encouragement, development, and expansion of any lawful business,
industry or trade by means of, among others, scientific advancement of
methods, systems or techniques of operations, management, financing,
investment, labor, conducting research Studies, tests, experiments for
the processes of commercial and industrial products and formulating and
implementing plans for the marketing thereof;
“e. To enter into any lawful arrangement for sharing profits, joint
venture, union, interests, reciprocal concession or cooperation with any
person, or corporation, association, partnership, syndicate or entity
located in or organized under the laws of any authority in any part of
the world in the carrying on of any business which the Corporation is
authorized to carry on, or any business or transaction deemed necessary,
convenient or incidental to the carrying on of the purpose of the
Corporation;
“f. To obtain funds to support or carry out its objects and purposes
and/or to arrange financial or equipment credit, or any kind of
assistance for its own account or for the account, of its clients in
such manner as the Board of Directors of the Corporation may deem
reasonable from governmental or private sources in the Philippines or
elsewhere or from international, public or private lending institutions,
and to secure any or all of the same by any guarantee or
counter-guarantee, by pledge, mortgage, deed of trust, or assignment of
the property of the Corporation, or by creating or suffering to exist a
charge, lien, or encumbrance, general or special, upon its assets, for
the purpose of securing the performance by the Corporation of any
obligation or liability it may undertake for itself or for other
companies or enterprises in which it may be interested:
“g. To purchase, hold, accept, or otherwise acquire by merger,
consolidation or other methods of combination, the whole or any part of
the property, assets, business, goodwill, rights, privileges and
franchises of all kinds and to undertake or assume the whole or any part
of the liabilities and obligations of any person, firm, association or
corporation, and to pay for the same or any part or combination thereof
in cash, stocks, bonds, debentures, notes or other securities of this
Corporation or otherwise, or by undertaking or assuming the whole or any
part of the liabilities or obligations of the transferor, and to hold
or in any manner dispose of the whole or any part of the property and
assets so acquired, accepted or purchased, and to conduct in any lawful
manner the whole or any part of the business so acquired and to exercise
all the powers necessary or convenient in and about the conduct,
management and carrying on of such business;
“h. To apply for, register, purchase or otherwise acquire, use, protect
and renew any patents, patent rights, licenses, concessions, trademarks,
tradenames, inventions, formulas and processes used or capable of being
used in connection with any of the business of the Corporation the
acquisition of which may directly or indirectly benefit the Corporation,
and to use, exercise, develop, sell, assign, or otherwise dispose of,
or grant licenses in respect of, the property, rights, trademarks or
other information so acquired, and to spend money in experimenting upon,
and testing and improving, any patents, inventions or rights which the
Corporation may acquire or propose to acquire;
“i. The Corporation shall have the power to make, perform and carry out
contracts of every sort and kind, and particularly, but not by way of
limitation, to make and perform contracts creating any of the property,
real or personal, owned by the Corporation; to organize, manage and
operate subsidiary or affiliate companies; to establish and/or maintain
one or more offices or branches in other parts of the Philippines or
abroad, and to conduct its business and exercise its powers in any part
of the Philippines or in any other country, slate or territory; and in
carrying on its business, to do any and all acts and things and to
exercise all powers which may be necessary or convenient to the
accomplishment or furtherance of its business or which a natural person
could do and exercise and which may now or hereafter be authorized by
law.”

SEC. 4. Section 3 of the same Decree is hereby amended by
the deletion of the second paragraph thereof relative to the particular
powers of the Corporation.

SEC. 5. Section 4 of the same Decree is hereby amended
to read as follows:

“SEC. 4. The Corporation shall have perpetual existence.
The principal office of the Corporation shall be in the City of Manila
or such other place as may be fixed by the Board of Directors of the
Corporation.”

SEC. 6. Section 5 of the same Decree is hereby amended to
read as follows:

“SEC. 5. The total number of shares which the Corporation
shall have authority to issue is twenty million shares, all of which
shall be without par value. Authority is hereby conferred upon the Board
of Directors of the Corporation to issue shares for such consideration,
payable in cash or property, as said Board may from time to time fix,
but in no event less than five pesos (P5.00) per share.

“Sixty per centum of the said capital stock, or twelve million
shares with an assigned value of five pesos (P5.00) each, shall be
subscribed by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines. Three
million of the said subscribed shares amounting to fifteen million pesos
shall be immediately paid for by the Government from the accumulated
earnings of the Veterans Claims Settlement Fund.

“Subscription of the Government of the Republic of the
Philippines shall be made by the President, and the voting power of such
shares of stock shall be vested in him or in such person as he may
designate.

“Fifty percent of the cash dividends pertaining to-the shares of
the Government shall be automatically applied to the payment of the
subscribed capital stock of the Government until the said capital stock
shall have been fully paid for and the balance shall be turned over to
the Philippine Veterans Assistance Commission for use in veterans
assistance projects. Upon full payment of the subscription of the
Government, all the cash dividends payable on the shares of the
Government shall be turned over to the Philippine Veterans Assistance
Commission for the same purpose.

“The Corporation shall be exempt from the payment of any and all
taxes, duties, charges, fees and assessments of whatever nature and
description imposed by any authority, whether national or local.

SEC. 7. The same Decree is hereby amended by deleting the
provision under Section 6 and substituting in lieu thereof the following
provision:

“SEC. 6. The Corporation shall have its own auditor and
shall not be subject to the supervision or control of the Commission on
Audit. The auditor shall be appointed by the Board of Directors
preferably from among veterans and ex-servicemen of good standing who
are certified public accountants and with actual experience in the work
of a comptroller. The auditor may not be removed except for cause.”

SEC. 8. The same Decree is hereby amended by deleting the
provision under Section 7 and substituting in lieu thereof the following
provision:

“SEC. 7. All veterans funds now being administered by the
Philippine Veterans Bank and the Reparations Commission (Republic Act
No. 1789) or those that may hereafter be administered by other agencies
and which are not encumbered or earmarked for any individual veteran or
organization shall be placed under the administration, management and
control of the Corporation.”

SEC. 9. Section 8 of the same Decree is hereby amended to
read as follows:

“SEC. 8. This Decree shall take effect immediately,
provided that amendments, changes and modifications may be made by me
and the same shall take effect after pronouncement thereon by me or by
my duly designated representative. The provisions of existing laws,
executive or administrative orders, rules and regulations, or parts
thereof inconsistent with the provisions of this Decree shall be
inapplicable.”

SEC. 10. The same Decree is hereby amended by adding a new
section to be known as Section 9 which shall read as follows:

“SEC. 9. The provisions of this Decree are hereby
declared to be separable and if any clause, sentence, provision or
section of this Decree or application thereof to any person or
circumstances should for any reason be held invalid or unconstitutional,
such invalidity or unconstitutionality shall not affect the other
provisions or application of this Decree which can be given force and
effect.”

Done in the City of Manila, this 26th day of December, in the year
of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-three.