ts, which are
to be made from time to time as their action is taken. Wherever civil
governments are constituted under the direction of the Commission
such military posts, garrisons, and forces will be continued for the
suppression of insurrection and brigandage and the maintenance of law
and order as the Military Commander shall deem requisite, and the
military forces shall be at all times subject, under his orders, to the
call of the civil authorities for the maintenance of law and order and
the enforcement of their authority.

In the establishment of municipal governments the Commission will take
as the basis of their work the governments established by the Military
Governor under his order of August 8, 1899, and under the report of the
board constituted by the Military Governor by his order of January 29,
1900, to formulate and report a plan of municipal government, of which
His Honor Cayetano Arellano, President of the Audiencia, was chairman,
and they will give to the conclusions of that board the weight and
consideration which the high character and distinguished abilities of
its members justify.

In the constitution of departmental or provincial governments they will
give especial attention to the existing government of the island of
Negros, constituted with the approval of the people of that island,
under the order of the Military Governor of July 22, 1899, and after
verifying, so far as may be practicable, the reports of the successful
working of that government they will be guided by the experience thus
acquired so far as it may be applicable to the condition existing in
other portions of the Philippines. They will avail themselves, to the
fullest degree practicable, of the conclusions reached by the previous
Commission to the Philippines.

In the distribution of powers among the governments organized by the
Commission, the presumption is always to be in favor of the smaller
subdivision, so that all the powers which can properly be exercised by
the municipal government shall be vested in that government, and all
the powers of a more general character which can be exercised by the
departmental government shall be vested in that government, and so
that in the governmental system, which is the result of the process,
the central government of the islands, following the example of
the distribution of the powers between the States and the Nati