DISCOURSE ON THE REGIONALIZATION IN JAPAN AND THE PHILIPPINES: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

August 11, 2009

 

Cyl Bryan A. Bagadiong, JDS Fellow

 Meiji University Graduate School of Governance Studies

 

I.                    INTRODUCTION

Japan and the Philippines are entirely of two different worlds. The two countries do not share any common culture and history except for a brief period in 1942-1945 when the Philippines had been subjugated by Japan in World War II. In that brief interlude, both countries had been ruled in the name of one Ruler – His majesty the Emperor of Japan; and both country sports a paper money with the same emblem – the emblem of the royal family of Japan. Except for that, nothing can be said to be the same with the two countries. Even the existence of both in one geopolitical hemisphere of Asia, the Philippines did not fully assimilate the “Asian culture”. Instead, it retained the “Hispanic culture”, thus,  even highlighting more the differences of the two countries.

But today, the two countries seem to take the same path. Until recently when both of the country faces the same issue – the growing domestic demand to go one step further with each of the government’s decentralization efforts and the practical needs of government convergence. Both, at first glance, are experiencing the same demands and needs from its people. Looking both at their experiences and their choice of response to the demands of convergence and needs of decentralization is quite academically interesting. Thus, this paper will discourse a common theme which is hot on both the country’s menu of administrative reforms – regionalization.

I had subdivided this discursive paper into Five (5) chapter-like divisions.

The first chapter (II. Common Issues) will look into thematic issues across both countries that paint the present situation. This will be done by looking into the common issues faced by both countries that led them to think about regionalization and rethink the foundational form of its governments.

In the second chapter (III. The Philippines Regionalization), I will look into the proposed scheme of regionalization in the Philippines after taking stock of the present system and the problems and issues faced by the Philippines tracing the causal relationship that led to the proposed scheme.

In the third chapter ( IV. The Japan Regionalization), I shall look into the current system of Japan; the problems and issues faced by Japan due to the current system; and the proposed regionalization recommendations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

After which, in my limited capacity as a student, a comparative discourse will comprise the Fourth Chapter (V. A Comparative Analysis) and in the last chapter (VI. Conclusion), I shall attempt to extract, again in my limited knowledge, some derivations and extrapolations that I hope will contribute to the ongoing debates in my country.

 

II.                  COMMON ISSUES

To give more focus on this paper, the discourse will only limit on the issues encountered in the wide-area tier of local governments of both countries –Prefectures for Japan and Provinces for the Philippines. Further, it will only discuss two area of policy response – the effect on the decentralization of powers on local self-determination and the impact on the country’s overall urban governance.

a.      DEPENDENCY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

After more than a decade of decentralization in Japan and the Philippines, both countries’ local governments seem to still exhibit a distinct dependency in the central government in one way or another.

In the Philippines, despite the autonomy in administration and policy formulation granted in the local governments, the local government is still beholden to the central government. This control of the central government is deployed through the allocations of the Internal Revenue Allotments (IRA) to the local governments. Albeit it may be argued that the IRA – the local governments share from the national wealth – has a fixed formula to ensure a fair and equitable distribution depending upon several factors, the national government retained discretions of some portions of it in the matter of distribution, thus, providing for instrument for the national government to exercise control or pressure among the local governments.

Also, except from those local governments located in Metropolitan Manila and some Key Cities and provinces in the south of the country, data from the department of budget and management of the Philippines will show that the dependency ratio of the local governments to the IRA is as high as 85% as compared to the income they raised by themselves (DILG: 2000)[i]. “Administrative Guidance” in the Philippines manifest through various guidelines issued by the National Government, almost specific, providing for how much extent and how to spend the IRA, therefore, leaving no elbow room for the local government to exercise their own imagination to efficiently appropriate their limited funds.

This also runs true to the local governments of Japan. Japan has an interfused pattern of decentralization. If we are going to view local governments of Japan in the number and extent of services, we can truly say that Japan local governments are able to perform its duties without much intervention from the central government. However, in reality, even with the implementation of the Omnibus Decentralization Law on April 1, 2000, the attitude of dependency of the local governments to the central governments remained discernible (IKAWA:  2008, p18[ii]). Further, Central government responses to the local governments rooted in the former superior/subordinate culture could still be identified (ibid: p 19).

Furthermore, Fiscal Trinity Reform was implemented from 2003 to 2006 in Japan to cure the criticisms on the method of distribution of Local Allocation Tax (LAT). The LAT as alleged by the local governments hinders the autonomy and independence of local policies and it obstructs efficient and effective local management (ibid: p 23). However, with the implementation of the said reform, it had been observed that instead of curing the problem, it had aggravated the situation by giving priority to fiscal reconstruction over decentralization causing so much trouble to the local governments over fiscal and revenue management (ibid: p 24). I suffice; it will further highlight the inequality among local governments in the near future.

b.      OVER-CONCENTRATION IN ONE CITY

(Insert bird’s eye-view OF METRO MANILA)

Metropolitan Manila is the greater metropolitan area of the City of Manila, which is the capital of the Philippines. It is the seat of power and finance of the country. According to August 2007 census, it has 13 million people and has 22 million residences if we will include the suburbs in the adjacent provinces. Compared to the next biggest city in the country, Metropolitan Cebu pales in comparison with only a little over 2 million populations according to the 2007 census. In terms of GDP, it has $108 billion in 2005 with an annual growth rate of 5.9% and considered to be the 42^nd in the world’s richest urban agglomeration.  (Pricewaterhouse outlook: 2007[iii]) (See annex 1 below)

The Philippines, in 2007, posted a $298.9 billion GDP. Premise above, we can already compute on how much of that country’s GDP comes from Metro Manila.  To further support my contention that there is only but one big city in the Philippines, Metro Manila is the 11^th most populated city in the world with a population density of 6, 466 people per square kilometer in an area of 2, 521 km².( R.L. Forstall, R.P. Greene, and J.B. Pick: 2004[iv]) (see table as annex 2 below)

The same can be said to Japan with Tokyo City accounting for $1,191 billion GDP in 2005 as compared to $341 billion GDP of Kobe/Osaka(Pricewaterhouse outlook: 2007)[v]. This will show that Tokyo tripled the GDP of Osaka, the next biggest city in Japan. With Japan posting $4,383 billion GDP in 2007[vi], it would seems that Tokyo accounts for ¼ of the said amount or more if computed with fixed growth rate at 2.2% per year. Tokyo remains the world’s richest city and shall remain at least until 2020 (ibid).

But Tokyo Metropolitan (Includes TMG) is better in terms of population density but not necessarily the least populated in the world. With a population of 35 million in 8, 014 km² areas, the population density of Tokyo is 4, 049 people/square kilometers[vii]. (See table as annex 2 below). Still, Tokyo is Japan’s Only “Giant City” in the whole country (ICHIKAWA, H; Urban Governance Module; Sub Module 1)

(Insert bird’s eye-view of TOKYO)

These Two issues, the effect on urban governance and its implication to the macro governance of the country plus the dependency of the local governments to the central governments are the two main reasons, among others such as internationalization and sustainability, why the two countries, Japan and the Philippines, find it viable to consider “regionalization” of the country.

III.                THE PHILIPPINE REGIONALIZATION

a.      CURRENT SYSTEM

The Philippines, through its constitution, had strongly institutionalized the decentralization of government powers by providing a specific provision recognizing the local governments and its tiers. A landmark law, the Republic Act 7160 of 1991, finally concretized this decentralized form of government by specifically providing for the devolution of powers, responsibility and manpower, and decentralizing authority and control to local governments.

At present, a three-tier local government is in force in the Philippines with the Provinces as the wide-area tiers, the municipality as the mid-size area tier and the “baranggay” (village) as the basic level. All of them are supposed to exercise some degree of autonomy while each level has supervisory powers over another lower level. The officialdom follows “unitary presidentialism” and is elected by direct suffrage by the people in a fixed term. All levels have also inherent and statutory delegated functions mostly on basic services such as education, health, sanitation, disaster preparedness and maintenance of “local” roads, irrigations and other basic infrastructures.

b.      PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

Some problem that was ought to be answered by the decentralization policy of the government still exist. Notable of these is the persistent intervention of “Imperial Manila” to local self-determination through control of the Internal Revenue Allotment (Local Allocation Tax in Japan), its refusal to widen the tax coverage of the local governments and its refusal to disperse government services equally among the local governments.

Because of this, the seat of governmental and corporate power remains in Manila. With a country of 7,107 islands and connecting them is not a priority of the national government until 2000, Manila developed into a mega city to the detriment of other cities in the Philippines. In the context of Urban Governance, the above-mentioned situation aggravated the developmental accretion in Metro Manila resulting to over-concentration of Metro Manila, thus, highlighting many social problems such as rise in the number of informal settlers, incapacity of public utilities to absorb the provincial migrants, rise of crime volumes, etc.  Managing Metro Manila become a nightmare and it slowly deteriorated until Metro Manila Development Authority had been created to provide a semblance of direction in the management of the seat of power of the country. Still, the fact remains that the nerve center of the Philippines is Manila that if the country is at war, an enemy will only need one missile, to hit Manila, and the country will already be on its knees.

Dispersion and distribution of development among the provinces is the key to solve many problems, not only the urban governance of Metro Manila but also persistent allegations of Manila “Imperialism” thus resulting to people uprising in Mindanao and Cordillera and the indifference of Visayas against the people of Luzon. In fairness to the government, many strategies had been tried such as establishment of regional offices of vital central government offices to strategic regional area; creating the mega-regions where each designated regions shall concentrate on a certain economic activity, etc. But all of them seem to fail.

c.       PROPOSED ALTERNATIVE: REGIONAL FEDERALISM

(insert Map of proposed federal states)

Last month, Joint Resolution 10 in the Senate of the Philippines sponsored by 16 out of 24 Senators of the Republic had been filed seeking for the amendment of the Constitution for the creation of a Federal Presidential Republic. The Bill seeks to divide the country (or grouped the 7,107 islands) into 10 Autonomous Federal states with one Federal Administrative Region for Metro Manila.

The proposed sharing system of governmental powers among the central and local governments aims to solve primarily two main issues (Pimentel: 2002[viii]):

1.       To hasten the economic development among various region of the country, thus, de-concentrating  Metro Manila

2.       Dissipate the causes of the recurrent armed Moro challenges against the government and thereby laying a just and lasting peace in Central and Southwestern Mindanao. This problem is one of the causes hampering the development of the country as a whole.

According to the published copy of the resolution, this will be done by providing for the following:

1.       Transferring the Central Government Legislative Body (Diet) in the Visayas Region, the Supreme Court of the Philippines in Mindanao Region while allowing the Executive Department to remain in Metro Manila (Luzon Region).

2.       Each of the Federal States shall have each own Capital City as the center of power and finance.

3.       Greater Fiscal Independency for the States accounting for 80% share of the nation’s total revenue while the remaining 20% will remain with the national/central government. Of the 80% accruing to the state, 70% shall be apportioned among the local governments while the remaining 30% shall accrue to the state.

4.       Provision of Fiscal Equalization Fund for the “poor” states for at least 10 years and creation of Federal Equalization Council.

5.       Greater Administrative and Services decentralization to the state and the local governments limiting the power of the central government to Defense, Diplomacy, Customs, Currency, Immigration, Interstate Commerce, Federal Public works, Postal and Communications, Intellectual Property Rights, Census, and the administration of the Penal (criminal) Code. The rest will be on the shoulder of the states.

The strategies to be adopted are the conversion of the current congress as a “constituent assembly” and schedule the referendum of the new constitution on 2010 simultaneously with the Presidential Election. The resolution requires 2/3 votes of the congress voting separately or jointly. At present, the issue already crossed partisan politics and gaining grounds among the members of the congress and in the League of Provincial Governors of the Philippines.

IV.                JAPAN REGIONALIZATION

a.      CURRENT SYSTEM

Japan has a two-tier local government level with the prefecture exercising authority over wide-area and the municipality as the basic level of local governments. Between the two, there are other forms of local governments such as the special wards of TMG, the ordinance-designated cities, core-cities, special cities and villages in rural areas. The power and authorities of the local governments are spelled out in the Local Autonomy Law and subsequent laws such as the Omnibus Decentralization Act of 2000.

From the previous 71, 314 local governments in 1888, various mergers had been made to reduce the number of the local governments to the current 1, 821 to facilitate administration and service delivery (YOKOMICHI quoting data from M.I.C.: 2008 p 17)[ix]. The officialdom of the local governments adopts “unitary presidentialism” form of government and is elected by direct suffrage of the people for a fixed term subject to the dissolution of the council or vote of no-confidence against the Local Chief Executive.

The local autonomy is enshrined in the constitution of Japan although the core of the decentralization is embodied in the Local Autonomy Law, the Local Finance Law and the Local Public Service Law. Previously after the implementation of the Decentralization Promotion Act of 1995, the local governments perform two kinds of power- the agency delegated functions and the statutory functions. However, with the enactment of the Omnibus Decentralization Law of 2000 and the more recent which are the Decentralization Reform Law of 2006 and the Local Financial Reconstruction Law of 2007, wider coverage of authority and discretion had been given to the local governments of Japan.

b.      PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

In the review of 15 years of decentralization in Japan (IKAWA:2008), the degree of decentralization must be judge on the dual criteria of the range or quantity of work to be implemented by local governments and by the degree of independence that local governments have when implementing their work.

According to the findings, which resulted to the enactment of the omnibus decentralization law of 2000, what really happened in a decade and a half of Japan’s decentralization is that central government retained a large amount of authority for itself; and duties carried out by local governments are usually as agents of central government. With that pattern, it is evident that central government retained a large measure of control and intervened in local government administration in respect of the duties to be carried out. (ibid: p5)

These interventions are usually deployed through the system of Local Allocation Tax and the Grants system of the central government. Further, in the effort of the Central government to have uniformity in quality of services across country regardless of economic and geographical situation of a local government, formal and/or informal “administrative guidance” is issued by the central government and the local government has the tendency to adopt en toto this guidance by the central government.

Due to the non-diffusion of the power of the government among the various parts of the country, this resulted to over-concentration of Tokyo due to “steeped migration” and the failure to established a balanced national territory under the concept of “world city” (ICHIKAWA: module 1: p8). In my own experience, not only private (business) and public (central government offices) congregated in Tokyo but also the local governments, such as Hiroshima and other prefectures and cities, had established liaison headquarters in Tokyo for the purpose of establishing pipeline of power and money from the central government.

Considering all other circumstances such as the non-realization of the two consecutive ZENSO, Tokyo emerge as the only “Giant city” and the Japan’s “two-city east-west” structure began to breakdown. (ibid: module 1: p2)

Though Tokyo enjoyed the advantage of being the sole “Giant City” in Japan, planners, noted academicians and urban governance experts are now sounding the alarm for the seemingly creeping cancer slowly metastazing in Tokyo brought about by Traffic congestions, steeply rising land prices, community collapse or hallowing out of the population, urban pollution, long-distance commutes, unbearable commuter rush, social malaise manifestations, insufficient social and physical infrastructure, and increasing disaster risks, just to mention a few. (ibid: module 2)

Diffusion of governmental powers and finance through strategic dispersion of development accorded by a fully decentralized power in the local government is the key for Japan to have a balance development both in social and economic aspect of the country and in the holistic development of Japan.

c.       PROPOSED ALTERNATIVE: REGIONAL CONVERGENCE THROUGH MERGERS

Under this heading, I shall use the report rendered by the 28^th Committee to Investigate Local Government System of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (hereto referred as 28^th MIC CR), the 2^nd Interim Report of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (hereto referred as 2^nd LDP IR), the  Report on the “Basic Thinking Concerning a Regional System” of the National Governors’ Association (hereto referred as NGA Recommendation), Law to Promote Special Regional Areas of 2006 (hereto referred as SRPL of 2006), and the consequent analysis rendered by Prof. Kiyotaka Yokomochi to describe the regionalization initiatives of Japan.

Although as far as 1950s, the idea had already been floated for the regionalization of Japan, only last February 26, 2006 that a more concretized plan had been issued by the Central Government in the form of the 28^th MIC CR (YOKOMOCHI: p4). This is a follow up of the NGA recommendation that was published in August 2004 espousing for the merger of prefectures and conversion into local self-governing regions (ibid: pp 19-20). On June 14, 2007, the 2^nd Interim Report of the LDP had been released indicating a more concrete regionalization plan for the country and the financial distribution among the central and regional governments (ibid: pp 18-19). It would be interesting to note that on January 26, 2007, the Law to Promote Special Regional Areas came into force. This law, primarily concerning with the Hokkaido Region, is said to be an experimental model of what has to come in the future of regionalizing Japan (ibid: pp 17-18).

The current proposal of a regionalized Japan has the following purpose:

1.       Carrying out of massive scale of devolution of powers and functions in all tiers of local governments equipped with financial powers.

2.       Realizing land areas with autonomy and vitality by correcting the status of Tokyo as the national land structure of extreme concentration.

3.       Construction of efficient administrative system running through central and local governments.

Under the proposal, the following shall be considered:

1.       Merger of Prefectures into two or three groupings thus coming up with 9, 11, or 13 regional local governments (do-shu) each establishing a seat of government.

2.       Maintaining the two-tier level of local government by merging only the prefectures forming a wider area of coverage and power.

3.       Officialdom of the Regional Government shall consist of a Regional Governor with a regional assembly that will be directly elected by the people following the unitary presidential form of government.

4.       Some powers presently exercised by the prefectures will be transferred to the cities and municipalities while some powers and functions of the Central government will be transferred to the Regional Government (please see annex 3 for the complete table of proposed power of the regional government).

5.       Said transfer of power will accompany a financial restructuring aiming for the wider distribution of wealth and widening of tax base although the system is not yet final and has yet to be figured out.

6.       Mechanism for central government intervention will be the same although delegated function will not be revived.

7.       Special measures will be drafted for large cities

At present there is no specific time-table set by the government on when to implement or to make the plan into a reality. The awareness and level of interest of the public on the regional system in Japan is still low and the plan needs more specificities waiting to be defined.

(insert map of proposed areas of Regional Government in Japan)

 

V.                  A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

To look on the regionalization patterns, it is said that there are at least four forms of regionalization. (ibid: p 14). These are:

1.       Regions as administrative Organ of the state where the all the tiers perform as the administrative agent of the central government

2.       Regions as Intermediate Organ of the state to the lower tiers of local governments which are autonomous bodies

3.       Regions as Local Autonomous bodies where all the tiers are considered to be autonomous local bodies

4.       Regions as constituent units of a federal state where the regions are autonomous nation states and the lower tiers are local government units of the nation states.

Under this classification, it would seem therefore that Japan can be classified as following the Type 3 while the Philippines is following Type 4.

a.      APPROACH

Both of the countries’ constitution provide for a unitary states. While Japan’s proposal chooses to work within the ambit of the legal parameters of its constitution by providing a law for the merger of local government units, the Philippines’ proposal choose to attack its constitution by completely amending it through a constitutional assembly.

This is so because while Japan’s Constitution is classified as a “short” constitution which provides for general and basic principles of law, the Philippines’ constitution is considered to be “lengthy and wordy” constitution which is characterized by almost specific provisions of law thus leaving no room to maneuver for government. This was intentionally created by the framers due to the historical experience of the Philippines of dictatorship and government oppression. Thus, the regionalization cannot possibly be done without amending the present constitution.

 

b.      LAYERS OF GOVERNMENT

Japan’s proposal plans to maintain its current tiers by just widening the horizontal base of its local governments through mergers of prefectures or the second tier of its government. The Philippines’ proposal however will maintain it horizontal base yet extend it vertical structure by adding another layer of government between the local governments and the central governments.

It would seem here that Japan gave more weight to “efficiency” rather than “decentralization” by converging the upper tiers of the local government for facile administration.  The Philippines obviously choose “decentralization” over “efficiency” by creating another layer of autonomous government to govern that same number and same tiers of local governments.

c.       GEOPOLITICAL SUBDIVISION

While the subdivisions in Japan’s proposal are still being considered whether to form a 9, 11 or 13 regional subdivision, the Philippines’ proposal had already set its 10 Federal states. This would seem to be easy for the Philippines’ part because the country has already an existing regional divisions based on the various tribes of the Philippines whose ancestral domains had been maintained and respected by the Philippines Constitution.  Understandingly, this would be very difficult for Japan as Japan is largely a homogenous society without a distinct tribal segregation (with exceptions of “Ainu” in Hokkaido Prefecture).

d.      DECENTRALIZED POWERS

Japan’s regionalization will give the regional government a wider power but not as much as what the local governments demand. Albeit the original powers of the prefectures will be retained and will be shared to the lower tiers, the only addition will be the powers previously exercised by the regional offices of the central government. In the Philippines case, the very core of why regionalism is very attractive to the local governments is that the national government powers will now be limited to only few jurisdictions as mentioned previously.

While Japan has yet to clarify the sharing of wealth, the Philippines have already specified the percentages of sharing among the federal government, the states and the local governments albeit its is not yet fined tuned to a specific formulaic expression.

VI.                CONCLUSION

Premises above, one cannot help but to conclude that while Japan is taking the decentralization on a careful and slow stride, the Philippines is again following its formula of “big bang”. While Japan seems to want to do it correctly at the first time, thus, making regionalization as gradual as possible, the Philippines will be adopting the attitude of doing it aggresively, learn from it, and correct it later. In the street words, Japan is a espouser of “long-term engagement” while the Philippines is a espouser of “Whirlwind Affair” .

This is understandable because I believe that approaches are influenced by many factors. One, while Japan is already a rich country and has the resources and time to do it slow, the Philippines is still on a catch-up mode thus time and resources is not on the latter’s side. Two, while Japan only has experienced an experimental regional administration last year via the Hokkaido Special Administrative Region, the Philippine has long gone had its Special Administrative Region in Cordillera Region as far back as  late 1980’s and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao in early 1990s. But Japan’s regionalization talks had started since 1950s while the Philippines started regionalization talks only in late 1990s. Thus, Japan gained its knowledge via a careful surgically precise studies and the Philippines gained its knowledge through a trial and error method through experience.

Japan’s proposal choose to widen the diameter of the second layer of the tiers of its government while the Philippines’ proposal adds another layer in the already four layer tiers of government hoping that this will create a balance on its vertical structure. While Japan’s proposal choose to respect its basic law and avoid tinkering with its constitution, the Philippines’ proposal choose to revise its constitution to serve its purpose. Japan maybe gainsaid to tie its administrative reforms to its existing constitution whereas the Philippines  looks at its constitution as a tool to pursue its administrative reforms.  No one can judge which perspective is better than the other for only history can tell us. What is important is, both country feels and responds to the growing need of small and effective government and realizing the government of centrist ideology is already a passe in the current globalized and boundaryless world. Moreso, cultural diversity and governance ingenuity plays a crucial role in the drafting of both countries regionalization plans. Distribution of powers, authorities and fiscal responsibility in the context of creating a balance development across country has a very close relationship in the creation of a well distributed urban development structure. But whether the ongoing regionalization on both countries will achieved this will depend on many factors such as economic, social and institutional infrastructures.

Today, both are nothing but proposals but one thing is sure, these regionalization initiatives must be put on the table and must be debated, scrutinized, and studied so as it will pave way for understanding, enlightenment and enablement of all concerned.

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[i] State of the Cities, DILG, 2006

[ii] Ikawa, Hiroshi; 15 years of Decentralization Reform in Japan, CLAIR, COSLOG, GRIPS; 2008

[iii] Pricewaterhouse Coopers; UK Economic Outlook; Pricewaterhouse Coopers Intl., Lmt.; March 2007

[iv] RL Forestall, et.al; which are the largest? Why published populations for major world urban areas vary greatly?; 2005

[v] Pricewaterhouse Coopers; UK Economic Outlook; Pricewaterhouse Coopers Intl., Lmt.; March 2007

[vi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) June 5, 2008

[vii] RL Forestall, et.al; which are the largest? Why published populations for major world urban areas vary greatly?; 2005

[viii] http://nenepimentel.org/speeches/20020425101851fed.shtml June 5, 2008

[ix] Yokomichi, Kiyotaka, The Development of Municipal Mergers in Japan, CLAIR/COSLOG, 2008

 

REFERENCES:

 ICHIKAWA, Hiroo; Urban Governance Modules;

IKAWA, Hiroshi; 15 years of Decentralization Reform in Japan; CLAIR, COSLOG, GRIPS; 2008

YOKOMICHI, Kiyotaka; The Debate on the Introduction of A Regional System in Japan; CLAIR, COSLOG, GRIPS; 2008

YOKOMICHI, Kiyotaka; The development of Municipal Mergers in Japan; CLAIR, COSLOG, GRIPS; 2008

CLAIR; Primer on the Local Government of Japan; 2007

SENATE OF THE PHILIPPINES; Joint Resolution No. 10, April 23, 2008

 

 

ANNEX 4: MAP OF TOKYO METROPOLITAN AREA

 

ANNEX 2:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANNEX 1

ANNEX 3