Abolish the city as a category of local government

We can have just the province, municipality, and barangay as categories of local government. We can abolish the city as a category of local government and instead strengthen the provincial government. Cities themselves can endure the return to being municipalities. My idea of abolishing the city category is NOT radical. In the United Kingdom, the city is neither a category of local government nor a type of administrative division. Cityhood there is a cultural designation; it carries no administrative and legal privileges. Taking the lesson from the United Kingdom, we can reform our very concept of cityhood. A city doesn't necessarily have to be a populous, wealthy, or large municipality; it can be any locality. Cityhood can be handled by a cultural commission or ministry instead of an interior ministry.

The reason i want the city category abolished is the issue of wealthy municipalities without a province—their term for it is "independent cities." With the option of "independent component city," any sufficiently wealthy municipality can escape provincial authority more easily. When all municipalities of a given province declare themselves "independent cities," the province is effectively dissolved, leading to a situation similar to Metro Manila, where coordination and political unity are almost nonexistent. Thus, province-free municipality is just another method of worsening political disunity and fragmentation.

Province-free municipalities are inefficient. A highly urbanized city, when it is a province-free municipality, it has a tendency to take their neighbor's land to accomodate their urbanization. Self-sufficiency is rightfully the concern of a province, not of a municipality or that with cityhood. Province-free municipalities at average have smaller land areas than provinces, thus less available space to ensure self-sufficiency.

The principle of self-sufficiency favors provinces, but not province-free municipalities. A province can use city resources to develop rural areas; it can also use rural resources to feed the cities. A province can relocate some development from a highly urbanized municipality to a less urbanized municipality. The more urbanized municipality doesn't need to take their neighbor's land because it is being decongested. All what's needed for a provincial government to do it is strengthened authority. Just give the province more powers.