Too Many Barangays, Too Much Waste

Iloilo City has 180 barangays, a staggering number considering its population of just over 457,000. While this appears to align with national averages, a closer look reveals a major inefficiency: 30% of these barangays have fewer than 1,000 residents, with some hosting as few as 100 people. This bloated barangay structure is not only outdated but also an unnecessary drain on public resources.

Under the Local Government Code, a barangay in a highly urbanized city should have at least 5,000 residents. By this standard, Iloilo City should have no more than 91 barangays—half of its current count. Yet, due to legal loopholes and political maneuvering, the city continues to maintain an excessive number of barangays that serve more as administrative redundancies than as effective service providers.

A Governance Nightmare

Each barangay, regardless of size, requires a set of officials, facilities, and budget allocations. Every barangay expects a hall, health center, gym, and other infrastructure. The question is: does every barangay truly need these, or are these just additional burdens on taxpayers?

Smaller barangays often lack the financial muscle to provide essential services, forcing the city government to fill in the gaps. This results in inefficiencies, with funds spread too thinly across too many barangays instead of being consolidated for more impactful development projects. Worse, this system encourages wasteful spending and patronage politics, where maintaining barangay officials becomes a political strategy rather than a public service necessity.

Economies of Scale Matter

Consolidating barangays would lead to better economies of scale. A barangay with 5,000 residents can pool resources efficiently, ensure better service delivery, and develop local projects with meaningful impact. By contrast, a barangay with just a few hundred residents can barely sustain itself, let alone drive progress.

For instance, Barangay Calumpang, the largest in Iloilo City, receives around PHP 19.9 million in national tax allocation (NTA). Meanwhile, Barangay Roxas Village, with just 51 residents, gets nearly PHP 2 million—a per capita allocation over 31 times higher than Calumpang’s. Yet, with such limited human resources and funding, Roxas Village can barely execute significant development initiatives. The result is an inefficient allocation of taxpayer money.

The Political Barrier

Despite the clear legal and economic arguments for rationalizing barangay sizes, implementing reforms remains politically challenging. The law allows for the abolition and merger of barangays, but such moves require a plebiscite. Since barangay officials and their political patrons benefit from maintaining the status quo, any attempt at consolidation is often met with resistance.

This is where political will comes in. If politicians can defy the odds to protect their careers, they should be willing to take a risk to improve governance. Merging barangays might not be popular, but it would be a move toward more efficient public service delivery.

Time for Rationalization

Smaller barangays may foster closer community ties, but they fail the test of effective governance. Larger, properly structured barangays can balance citizen participation with sustainable service delivery.

It is time for Iloilo City to rationalize its barangay structure—not just because the law says so, but because common sense, efficiency, and economic prudence demand it. Politicians should stop treating barangays as political fiefdoms and start treating them as what they should be: functional units of governance designed to serve the people effectively.