Caloocan wants to split biggest village

A plan to divide the country’s largest barangay (village) , located in Caloocan City, has encountered a setback, specifically on how funds will be provided to the seven new barangays that will be created.

The Inquirer has learned that the city council will now likely urge Caloocan lawmakers at the House of Representatives to file a bill to divide Barangay 176, also known as Bagong Silang.

“Pursuing the division of Bagong Silang in Congress will enable the new and smaller barangays formed out of it to [get their] share from the Internal Revenue Allotment coming from the national government,” Councilor Anna Karina Teh told the Inquirer.

She noted that pursuing the plan at the city council’s level would mean that the new barangays would have to be funded locally.

Data from the National Statistics Office showed that Bagong Silang is officially the largest barangay in the Philippines, both in terms of land area and population. It covers 524.68 hectares— just slightly smaller than San Juan City, which is 594 ha—and is home to about 16 percent of Caloocan’s total population or 245,000 people as of 2010, slightly smaller than the population of Navotas, which is home to 249,000 individuals as of 2010.

However, most residents of the barangay remain poor,  which led Teh and other councilors to launch a bid to split it into seven smaller barangays.

“When we conducted a public hearing on the matter last year, most of the residents there favored what we were about to do,” Teh said. “They told us that the barangay is so huge that it is difficult for [everyone to avail] of government services.” With a report from Mark Ersan D. Ate