Philippine Bill 1902 :
Sec. 4. That all inhabitants of the Philippine Islands continuing to reside
therein who were Spanish subjects on the eleventh day of April, eighteen
hundred and ninety-nine, and then resided in the Philippine Islands, and
their children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be
citizens of the Philippine Islands and as such entitled to the protection of
the United States, except such as shall have elected to preserve their
allegiance to the Crown of Spain in accordance with the provisions of the
treaty of peace between the United States and Spain signed at Paris
December tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight.
Treaty of Paris
ARTICLE IX
Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by
the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or
may remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the
right to sell or dispose of such property or of its proceeds; and they shall also have the
right to carry on their industry, commerce and professions, being subject in respect
thereof to such laws as are applicable to other foreigners. In case they remain in the
territory they may preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making, before a
court of record, within a year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty,
a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance; in default of which declaration
they shall be held to have renounced it and to have adopted the nationality of the territory
in which they may reside.