EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 449, October 14, 1961

CREATING THE PRESIDENT’S COMMITTEE ON ASSISTANCE TO THE FISHING INDUSTRY

In keeping with the Administration’s policy of helping the small Filipino fishermen, I, Carlos P. Garcia, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby create a committee to be known as the President’s Committee on Assistance to the Fishing Industry, composed of the following:

The Administrator, Social Security System	Chairman
The Presidential Assistant on Community Development	Member
A representative of the Central Bank to be designated by the Governor thereof	Member
A representative of the Development Bank of the Philippines to be designated by the Chairman thereof	Member
and three members to be designated by the President of the Philippines.

It will be the objective of the committee to promote the interest and the economic and social uplift of the small Filipino fishermen. For this purpose, it will endeavor:

• 1. To coordinate the activities of all government agencies concerned with the fishing industry;

• 2. To give technical assistance and aid to the fishing industry in the procurement of fishing paraphernalia to increase production and thus conserve foreign exchange that would otherwise be required for importing fish products;

• 3. To help the small fisherman make more effective his fishing by providing him with essential fishing equipment and thus increase his income;

• 4. To create in the fisherman a consciousness that fishing is a major industry which insures his very existence;

• 5. To provide incentives to the fishing farmer for organizing cooperatives or any informal grouping for collective endeavor;

• 6. To teach the fisherman the value of self-reliance and confidence in the pursuit of his occupation;

• 7. To create favorable climate that will promote and insure the economic and social uplift of the small fisherman; and

• 8. To devise such other measures as would propagate proper fishing methods and thus insure maximum production at the minimum risk of the fisherman’s safety.

The committee is hereby authorized to make appropriate representations with the Central Bank of the Philippines, the Development Bank of the Philippines, the National Marketing Corporation, the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and other government agencies or instrumentalities having to do with the fishing industry in order to achieve the purposes of this Executive Order.

The committee is also authorized to call upon any department, bureau, office, agency, or instrumentality of the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations, for such assistance or information as it may need in discharging its functions.

Done in the City of Manila, this 14th day of October, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the Philippines, the sixteenth.

(SGD.) CARLOS P. GARCIA

President of the Philippines

By the President:

(SGD.) EDILBERTO B. GALLARES

Assistant Executive Secretary