Iloilo City is one of the oldest cities in the Philippines. It is faced with a burgeoning population and surging slum dwellers, the easiest solution of which is to expand the city area. However, this is not feasible as the city is bounded in the east by Guimaras Strait, and on the other sides, by four municipalities. In the early 1990s, the problems plaguing the city have been aggravated by city politics, which severely constricted long-term developmental efforts. In 1996, the conceptualization of Metro Iloilo has been stalled again by the incessant political stalemate between the present mayor and the Sangguniang Panglungsod. This paper attempts to document the initial thinking of the local officials to Metro Iloilo’s cooperative undertaking. It also tries to suggest crucial steps that can be taken to approach the present dilemma. This is in the aim of helping authorities in their implementation of a more acceptable cooperative arrangement and organization in the context of the institutional and political arrangements in Iloilo.
