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But instead it became 16 cities as it is today, even though if we compare the area and population of Metro Manila is equivalent to the average area and population of big cities in the world?
Because it wasn’t meant to be just one city. It was meant to be a province.
Metro Manila is the modern-day restoration of the historic Province of Manila (formerly called Tondo until the 1850s). The province of Manila’s territory encompassed the pre-hispanic states of Namayan, Tondo, and Maynila
The cities we know now in Metro Manila are basically the same municipalities and arrabales that made up the province of Manila until it was dissolved in 1901 to make way for the creation of the Province of Rizal, which took territories from both Manila and Morong provinces.
During the American Period, Manila was treated the same way as Washington D.C., a separate, unincorporated area we call a chartered city.
It stayed that way for most of the20th Century when Ferdinand Marcos re-unified the old territories of the Province of Manila, with the exception of Montalban and San Mateo in 1975.
However, despite the reunification, Marcos didn’t reestablish a province, instead, the territories formed a special region in the country, the National Capital Region, a region composed of towns and self-governing chartered cities like Manila, Quezon City, Pasig, etc. As years passed, due to urban sprawl, other towns within the NCR gradually developed into cityhood, most notable being Makati which became a city in 1995.
In the present day, only one municipality remained in the region, Pateros while the rest of the region’s territory has developed into cities.
To conclude, Metro Manila did not become one city because it was never treated like one. Historically it was a province, while in the present day it worked as a collection of independent, self-governing cities with their own rules and laws. It would be very impractical to make it one city when the cities themselves are autonomous.
I think a better way is to re-establish the old Province of Manila so the territory will have better-unified control under a Provincial Governor because as of the present, only MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority) has power over the NCR, but even their power is limited. By re-establishing the old Province of Manila, the Provincial Governor can have full control of the province without affecting the city status of the cities in Metro Manila.
