Cities of The Philippines

Cities Of The Philippines

A city (lungsod, or sometimes siyudad in Filipino or Tagalog) is a tier of local government in the Philippines. All Philippine cities are chartered cities, whose existence as corporate and administrative entities is governed by their own specific charters in addition to the Local Government Code of 1991, which specifies the administrative structure and political powers of subnational government entities.

Cities are entitled to one congressional district and representative per 250,000 population count, and are legally provided their own police force and allowed to use a common seal. As corporate entities, cities have the power to take, purchase, receive, hold, lease, convey, and dispose of real and personal property for its general interests, condemn private property for public use (eminent domain), contract and be contracted with, sue and exercise all the powers conferred to it by Congress. Only an Act of Congress can create or amend a city charter, and with this city charter Congress confers to a city certain powers that regular municipalities or even other cities may not have. Despite the differences in the powers accorded to each city, all cities regardless of status are given special treatment in terms of being given a bigger share of the internal revenue allotment (IRA) compared to regular municipalities, as well as being generally more autonomous than regular municipalities.

There are twelve metropolitan areas in the Philippines as defined by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). Metro Manila is the largest conurbation or urban agglomeration in the country, and its official metropolitan area is composed of the city of Manila plus 15 neighboring cities and a municipality. Other metropolitan areas are centered around the cities of Baguio, Dagupan, Angeles, Olongapo, Batangas, Naga, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga City and Davao.