Commonwealth Act No. 51

Also known as: CA No. 51 · The Charter of the City of Davao — the statute's own short title (Sec. 1) · The Davao City Charter

Government

Definition

Commonwealth Act No. 51 is “An Act Creating the City of Davao,” approved October 16, 1936, and by its own Section 1 known as “The Charter of the City of Davao” — the statute that converted the municipality of Davao and the municipal district of Guianga into a chartered city, making Davao, with Zamboanga, one of the first two cities of Mindanao under the Commonwealth. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City) Its territory clause is categorical: “The City of Davao, which is hereby created, shall comprise the territories of the present municipality of Davao and the municipal district of Guianga” (Sec. 2), endowed as “a political body corporate” with the powers of a municipal corporation (Sec. 3). (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

The statute installed a presidentially appointed government in the Commonwealth’s frontier province. The Mayor “shall be appointed by the President, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments of the National Assembly, and shall hold office at the pleasure of the President” (Sec. 7); the City Council comprised the Mayor as presiding officer, the city engineer, and the city treasurer ex officio, with five councilors — two presidential appointees and three elective, all five seats filled by appointment pending the next general elections (Sec. 12). (LawPhil — CA 51) The act took effect upon its approval (Sec. 51) — approved October 16, 1936, the day the standard account dates the charter city’s inauguration by President Manuel L. Quezon, with effectivity carried in the standard reference as March 1, 1937. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A — no standalone article (existence check verified this session); the act is covered within the Davao City and History of Davao City articles
Wikidata	N/A — no item located for the statute this session
DBpedia	N/A — resource lookup returns an empty record
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Commonwealth Act No. 51 Charter of the City of Davao October 16 1936 Guianga Romualdo Quimpo Quezon chartered city Commonwealth Philippines municipal district
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

CA No. 51
The Charter of the City of Davao — the statute’s own short title (Sec. 1)
The Davao City Charter

Examples and Analogies

A city chartered by national statute: Davao was made a city by an act of the National Assembly — Assemblyman Romualdo Quimpo’s Bill 609 of March 16, 1936. (Wikipedia — Davao City)
An appointed mayor for a frontier city: the President appoints the Mayor with the Commission on Appointments’ consent, the Mayor serving “at the pleasure of the President.” (LawPhil — CA 51)
Verified statutory data:
Territory: the municipality of Davao and the municipal district of Guianga (Sec. 2) (LawPhil — CA 51)
Mayor, council, and departments: Mayor appointed at the President’s pleasure, ₱4,800 salary plus possible ₱2,000 allowance, the city engineer then treasurer acting in a vacancy (Secs. 7–8); Council of Mayor, engineer, treasurer, and five councilors — two appointive, three elective — meeting weekly in public, the mayoral veto repassable (Sec. 12); departments of engineering, law, finance, and police, plus a Municipal Court (Sec. 16) (LawPhil — CA 51)
Transitory and later status: government organized upon appointment of Mayor and Council, whereupon the territory “shall cease to be under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Government of Davao” (Sec. 47); province and city remain one Assembly District (Sec. 49); highly urbanized city December 22, 1979; land area 2,443.61 km² (2024 population 1,848,947) (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

Usage Scenarios

1. Celebrating the City’s Founding

The charter’s dates structure Davao’s civic calendar — the filing of March 16, 1936, the approval and inauguration of October 16, 1936, and the March 1, 1937 effectivity — arithmetic this wiki’s Araw ng Dabaw entry dissects each March. (Wikipedia — Davao City)

2. Studying Commonwealth City Charters

The act is a specimen of the era’s charter legislation — a national statute creating a body corporate, appointing its officials from Manila, legislating budget, taxes, and courts. (LawPhil — CA 51)

3. Fixing the City’s Territory

Boundary research begins at Section 2 — Davao plus Guianga — the statutory base of the jurisdiction now the country’s largest city by land area. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

4. Tracing the Province-City Separation

The transitory articles — the city leaving provincial jurisdiction upon organization (Sec. 47) while remaining in one assembly district with the province (Sec. 49) — open the separation completed by Republic Act No. 4867’s division of the province on May 8, 1967. (LawPhil — CA 51, LawPhil — RA 4867)

Strategies

Charter by statute: a National Assembly act gave the Commonwealth a national instrument for territory, officials, courts, and finance alike. (LawPhil — CA 51)
Appoint the executive, mix the council: presidential appointment of the Mayor and two councilors, with three elective seats, balanced Manila’s control against representation. (LawPhil — CA 51)
Legislate the divorce from the province: Section 47’s automatic severance from the Provincial Government of Davao made cityhood jurisdictional, not honorific. (LawPhil — CA 51)

Security and Safety Measures

A police belt around the city: Section 6’s jurisdiction — three miles to sea, 2.5 miles on land, concurrent with municipal police. (LawPhil — CA 51)
Protecting the water supply: the same section extends police jurisdiction over the drainage area of the city’s water supply and within one hundred meters of its reservoirs and conduits. (LawPhil — CA 51)
Accountability by appointment and budget: the Mayor serves at the President’s pleasure under the Secretary of the Interior’s supervision and files the annual budget each October 31. (LawPhil — CA 51)
For researchers: the charter carries three dates — the bill’s filing (March 16, 1936), approval and inauguration (October 16, 1936), and the effectivity the standard reference dates to March 1, 1937 — while Section 51 makes the act effective “upon its approval”; any single “founding date” should cite its instrument. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

Historical Context

The statute crowned nine decades of the gulf’s colonial history — from Datu Bago’s Pinagurasan and the conquest town of Nueva Vergara (1848), renamed Davao in 1867, through the American plantation district of Davao Province from 1914, the record this wiki’s History of Davao City and Nueva Guipúzcoa entries carry. (Wikipedia — Davao City) Quimpo filed Bill 609 on March 16, 1936; it passed as Commonwealth Act No. 51, approved October 16, 1936 — the day the standard account dates the charter city’s inauguration by President Quezon — and by Section 47 the city government organized upon the appointment of its Mayor and Council, leaving the Provincial Government of Davao’s jurisdiction. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

The city outgrew every frame its drafters set. The surrounding province was divided by Republic Act No. 4867 (approved May 8, 1967) into Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental, with Davao City’s residents disqualified from voting for provincial officials and the city grouped with Davao del Sur only for congressional representation. (LawPhil — RA 4867) Declared a highly urbanized city on December 22, 1979, the territory Section 2 fixed is the country’s largest city by land area and third-most-populous. (Wikipedia — Davao City)

Challenges and Controversies

Which Date Is the Birthday?

The charter yields no single founding date: Section 51 makes the act effective “upon its approval” (October 16, 1936), the standard reference dates effectivity to March 1, 1937, and the city counts anniversaries from 1937 while marking March 16 as its holiday. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

An Appointed Government in a Democratic Commonwealth

A Mayor holding office at the President’s pleasure, two of five councilors appointed, and the elective seats likewise filled by appointment pending the next elections gave the city a government answerable upward — defensible in a frontier province, criticized as the colonial pattern continued. (LawPhil — CA 51)

The Vast Inheritance of Section 2

By sweeping in the whole municipality of Davao and Guianga, the charter fixed a territory so large it became the country’s biggest — 2,443.61 square kilometers — the city’s pride and the standing problem of governing rural hinterlands as one urban jurisdiction. (LawPhil — CA 51, Wikipedia — Davao City)

City and Province, Severed and Rejoined

Section 47’s severance from provincial jurisdiction created the anomaly Section 49 half-repaired — one assembly district spanning city and province — until the 1967 division left the city standing alone, grouped with Davao del Sur for representation only. (LawPhil — CA 51, LawPhil — RA 4867)