Metro Manila
The Metropolis
Metro Manila is more than just Manila: the metropolis of today not only encompasses the City of Manila but also includes three other cities and thirteen municipalities. The reason for the creation in 1975 of this large adminis-trative unit by Marcos' decree was, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer of October 10, 1989, "to give Mrs. Imelda Marcos something to do." Vested with dictatorial powers, the President's wife was declared Governor of Metro Manila, which sprawled over 635.98 square kilometers (248 square miles) with a population of then some 7 million people.
While the land area covered by the metropolis remained the same, the population has swollen like a pregnant woman. Just how many people are squeezed into this space, is a matter of debate. Figures vary from 7.5 to 12 million. A generally respected source, the German Fischer Weltalmanach, edition of 1989, cites both figures but in different con-texts. Prof. Dr. Bronger of the Geographic In-stitute of the Ruhr University in Bochum dif-ferentiates between metropolitan agglomera-tion (the urban core area) and metropolitan region (the functional entity of a mega city). In the Philippine case, Metro Manila is consid-ered the agglomeration, with an estimated population of 7.725 million inhabitants in 1986.
The metropolitan region includes much of the provinces of Rizal, Laguna, Cavite and Bulacan; the major towns of these provinces all border Metro Manila, and there is no visi-ble boundary between many of them and the administrative entity that is the actual metropolis. Including these adjacent towns which administratively are not part of the metropolis, the metropolitan region of the Philippine capital had in 1986 a population of about 11.920 million.
Comparison of the mega cities of the world is different because often, it's just an arbi-trary administrative decision that defines a city. But even if the highest mentioned figure is taken, Metro Manila is still far below the size of the four largest metropolitan areas in the world. These are: Mexico City, which has approximately 18.5 million inhabitants, Tokyo-Yokohama with 17.5 million people, Sao Paulo with 16 million and New York (with north-eastern New Jersey) 15.5 million.
Even in the East, Metro Manila does not have a leading position. Shanghai, Peking, Canton and Tonking in China, Calcutta and Bombay in India, Seoul in South Korea, and Jakarta in In-donesia are all larger.
The four cities and thirteen towns of Metro Manila are (with the official numbers of in-habitants and, in parenthesis, their areas in square kilometers): 1. City of Manila 1,875,000 (38.3); 2. Quezon City 1,241,000 (166.2); 3. Kalookan City 538,000 (55.8); 4. Makati 429,000 (29.9); 5. Pasay City 331,000 (13.9); 6. Pasig 309,000 (13.0); 7. Valenzuela 244,000 (47.0); 8. Marikina 243,000 (38.9); 9. Paranaque 240,000 (38.3); 10. Mandaluyong 236,000 (26.0); 11. Malabon 220,000 (23.4); 12. Muntinlupa 158,000 (46.7); 13. Las Pinas 154,000 (41.5); 14. Taguig 152,000 (33.7); 15. San Juan 150,000 (10.4); 16. Navotas 145,000 (2.6); 17. Pateros 46,000 (10.4)
For those who want to understand the po-litical structure of Metro Manila, it may be confusing that the locals generally do not make any distinction among the four cities and the thirteen municipalities forming Metro Manila on the one hand, and the districts within these four cities and thirteen munici-palities on the other. Particularly, the names of the districts of the City of Manila (which is only one of the four cities and thirteen municipalities) are commonly used and treated as if they were names of separate en-tities.
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