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Region: The Western Isles

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Roendavar wrote:This seems like an interesting question.

I live in the Philippines. We currently have 81 provinces, turning 83 in 2020 (I know it's a lot). Each province is ruled by a governor. The provinces are grouped into 17 regions, 14 of them are assigned a number based on their geographic location starting from the North to the South. The other 3 are the CAR (Cordillera Administrative Region), NCR (National Capital Region), and the BARMM (Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao). The NCR is composed of 16 cities, who act independently, and 1 municipality. The regions don't have power. They serve more of a demographic purpose rather than a political entity.

Provinces are divided into cities and municipalities. Their differences are more on an economic level. Cities are either richer, seat of the local government, or proclaimed a city through a law. Our current number for cities is at 145, while we have 1,489 municipalities. We have 3 types of cities, HUC (Highly Urbanized Cities), ICC (Independent Component Cities), and CC (Component Cities). HUCs and ICCs function independently. They are excluded from voting in the province they are located on. There are exceptions to these but this would be very long.

Each municipality and city are subdivided into barangays. The Philippines has a total of 42,029 barangays, each governed by a barangay captain. Barangays have executive, legislative, and judicial powers. They are a result of Philippine history, where before the Spanish arrived, groups of people, mainly families. were classified into a barangay. These barangays eventually evolved into barrios when the Spanish came and reverted back to barangays when we got our independence.

(Opinions below. Disregard if you only want facts.)
If you're asking, why are there so many political divisions in the Philippines? Wouldn't it be confusing? Well, let's start with the pros. Local leaders can serve their constituents more effectively as they live in the same area, each division is ruled by the same culture and people which minimizes unrest (locally speaking), and they can tailor laws and ordinances to their specific needs. The cons, corruption runs rampant, political families control much of local politics with an iron fist, and the bureaucracy is astronomical. It's a failing system, but one that's still sticking around.

I spent 5 minutes reading this only because my friend if Filipino and was hoping to impress him but this melted a hole through my brain. I blame the Americans.

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