Regions of The Philippines - History

History

Regions first came to existence in on September 24, 1972 when the provinces of the Philippines were organized into 11 regions by Presidential Decree No. 1 as part of the Integrated Reorganization Plan of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Since that time, other regions have been created and some provinces have been transferred from one region to another.

• July 7, 1975: Region XII created and minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• August 21, 1975: Region IX divided into Sub-Region IX-A' and Sub-Region IX-B. Minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• November 7, 1975: National Capital Region created.
• August 1, 1989: Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao created.
• October 23, 1989: Cordillera Administrative Region created.
• October 12, 1990: Executive Order issued to reorganize the Mindanao regions but the reorganization never happened (possibly due to lack of government funds).
• February 23, 1995: Region XIII (Caraga) created and minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• 1997: Minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions.
• September 19, 2001: Most Mindanao regions reorganized and some renamed.
• May 17, 2002: Region IV-A (CALABARZON) and Region IV-B (MIMAROPA) created from the former Region IV (Southern Tagalog) region.
• May 23, 2005: Palawan transferred from MIMAROPA to Western Visayas; MIMAROPA renamed to MIMARO.
• August 19, 2005: The E.O. 429 of May 23, 2005 transferring Palawan from MIMAROPA to Western Visayas was later held in abeyance by Administrative Order #129.