In the Philippines, regions (Filipino: rehiyon; ISO 3166-2:PH) are administrative divisions that primarily serve to coordinate planning and organize national government services across multiple local government units (LGUs). Most national government offices provide services through their regional branches instead of having direct provincial or city offices. Regional offices are usually but not necessarily located in the city designated as the regional center.
Regions first came to existence on September 24, 1972, when the provinces of the Philippines were organized into eleven regions under Presidential Decree No. 1 as part of the Integrated Reorganization Plan of President Ferdinand Marcos.[1] Since that time, other regions have been created and some provinces have been transferred from one region to another.
January 30, 1990 – Residents reject in a plebiscite the ratification to create the Cordillera Autonomous Region.[12]
October 12, 1990 – Reorganization and/or renaming of the Mindanao regions: Region IX (Western Mindanao), Region X (Northern Mindanao), Region XI (Southern Mindanao), Region XII (Central Mindanao), and ARMM. Regional center of Region IX is transferred to Pagadian, with Zamboanga City remaining as the region's commercial and industrial center.[13]
February 23, 1995 – Region XIII (Caraga) is created and minor reorganization of some Mindanao regions; Sultan Kudarat is transferred to Region XII.[14]
March 7, 1998 – Residents reject in a plebiscite for the second time the ratification to create the Cordillera Autonomous Region.[15]
December 18, 1998 – Sultan Kudarat is reverted to Region XII.[16]
July 17, 2016 – The Southwestern Tagalog Region (Mimaropa Region) is established comprising the former Region IV-B (in effect merely a renaming and discontinuation of the "Region IV-B" designation since no boundary changes were involved).[26]
August 9, 2017 – NIR abolished. Negros Occidental (including Bacolod) and Negros Oriental reverted to Regions VI and VII, respectively.[27]
As of June 30, 2024[update], the Philippines is divided into 18 regions.[34] The traditional island groups of Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao are composed of eight (Regions I, II, III, IV-A, and V, and CAR, NCR, and Mimaropa), four (VI, VII, VIII, and NIR), and six (IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, and BARMM) regions, respectively. The names of Calabarzon, Mimaropa, and Soccsksargen are acronyms signifying their component provinces and cities; and are usually capitalized in official government documents.
An administrative region is a grouping of geographically adjacent LGUs that may be established, disestablished, and modified by the president of the Philippines based on the need to formulate coherent economic development policies, more efficiently provide national government services, and coordinate activities beneficial to the development of larger area beyond the province level. No plebiscites have been conducted so far to democratically confirm the creation, abolition or alteration of the boundaries of regular administrative regions, as the Constitution does not mandate it.[35]
An administrative region is not a local government unit (LGU), but rather a group of LGUs to which the president[36] has provided an unelected policy-making and coordinating structure, called the Regional Development Council (RDC).[37]Metro Manila is recognized in law as a "special development and administrative region", and was thus given the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA);[38] the Metro Manila Council within the MMDA serves as the National Capital Region's RDC.[37]
The Supreme Court has ruled that an autonomous region established by statute must be composed of more than one province, thereby invalidating the proposed establishment of the Autonomous Region of Ifugao following the results of the original 1990 Cordillera autonomy plebiscite, which saw only Ifugao's voters casting a majority 'yes' vote towards autonomy.[39]
Component local government units: the data column is limited to primary LGUs, which pertains to component provinces, highly urbanizedcities, and independent component cities, as well as the independent municipality of Pateros. All city names, except those under the National Capital Region, are italicized.
Location: the location map column can be sorted from north-to-south, west-to-east.
^Land area figures are the sum of each region's component provinces and independent cities, derived from the National Statistical Coordination Board (Philippine Statistics Authority) official website. For the BARMM, land area is derived from the Bangsamoro Development Plan Integrative Report.[41][42][43]
^A component city, part of the province of Basilan, but whose regional services are provided by the offices of Region IX.
^ abThe province of Cotabato, which is part of the Soccsksargen region, has 63 of its barangays included in the BARMM.
^Following the Bangsamoro autonomy plebiscite and the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was superseded by the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in February 2019, which transferred the provinces and cities already in the ARMM, as well as surrounding communities that voted for inclusion.
As far as the judiciary is concerned, specifically the first and second level courts, the country is divided into judicial regions as provided by Batas Pambansa Bilang 129. The coverage of these judicial regions generally coincides with that of the administrative regions in 1980, with some exceptions.
Representation for the Interim Batasang Pambansa was mostly through parliamentary districts based on how regions were organized in 1978. Metro Manila was "Region IV", while Southern Tagalog was "Region IV-A". This was the only time the national legislature was represented via regions; in a 1984 plebiscite, voters approved a constitutional amendment that reverted to representation per province and city.
Cordillera Autonomous Region[45] (proposal to convert the Cordillera Administrative Region into an autonomous region; see Cordillera autonomy movement)
^Integrated Reorganization Plan: Reorganization of the Executive Branch of the National Government. Presidential Commission on Reorganization. 1972. pp. 12–13.