Locality and Sub-Locality Classification for areas outside NCR in the Philippines

[Rally de Leon]

I don't  know about areas in NCR, but for provincial areas, the Town is subdivided into "Barangay's" (headed by Barangay chairman). Barangay is subdivided into "Purok" (headed by Purok Chairman).

What is the equavalent category which will nicely fit for these? Some people insist on Locality (for Areas, eg. Diliman) -- just because of the definition of Google.... I think Locality should be for Barangay, and SubLocality for Purok.

Subdivisions are normally classified as Gated Community (although some don't, those converted to public roads). But there are named areas like those for "informal settlers", which are a high density areas (with defined perimeters, but no fence or gates), but are officially recognized by the Local Government --- This eventually becomes Puroks (or sometimes a Community, but it's not gated) This is a good candidate for Sub-Locality.  Else how do we categorize it? I can name a lot in Taytay Rizal: Sapang Pila (purok 1), Bagong Sibol (purok 3), Callejon 1 (check the map of taytay and you will see that narrow streets barely enough to pass tricycles), Bato-bato1 (not a purok but a known area of informal settlers), etc. By Google's definition, maybe this fits Neighborhood (but then again, it is also Locality).

Do we classify the bigger Barangay as "Sub-Locality", and Purok as "Locality/Neigborhood"?

Will anyone challenge the proposal so we can arrive at a better definition? (because I maybe wrong). Most mappers are from NCR and failed to consider classifications outside of MetroManila. We need a universal classification. Forget Google's definition, we need to localize the defintion (after all, it will be applied country-wide).  

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 10:30 PM, Rally de Leon <ral...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tas,

Some people in my area used "City / Town / Village" polygon for their big subdivision (about the size of a small barangay. Others used "Sub-Locality / Neighborhood" or  "Housing Complex / Development", because most first time users will just look at closest match when finding for the correct category at the drop-down menu.

Nobody explains to a first-time Filipino map editor of their locality which one to use, and it's not like we can contact this new users personally to teach and spoon-feed them, to moderate for the sake of consistency (specifically for philippine condition).

I would agree with you on the following (with some comments): ---I'm talking about the drop-down on the polygons.

1. [Country]: Philippines

2. [State]:  (referring to the philippine regions eg. Region 1, 2, 3, NCR, etc.)
NCR or Metro Manila --- but which? for the sake of consistency
CALABARZON or Region4-A (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon)
Region 3 (Central Luzon Area)

3. [District]: (referring to the name of the Province under a Region)
Rizal, Cavite or Bulacan
----> But what about the city in NCR, eg. Pasig City, Marikina City? --- under what district?
I don't know if some people just invented "Eastern Manila District", "Capital District", "CAMANAVA", Souther Manila District, etc).  If these districts truly exist in the NCR, do we have a reference (eg. a website) to verifty? I'm familiar with CAMANAVA but not with the rest... (sorry)  :-)

I also need to know if there is basis for these (District Catergories) so that we can teach others. I might be missing something here (considering I'm in the mail delivery business, I'm an advocate of educating people about their correct postal addresses).  Can you enumerate all the said Districts (in NCR) and what cities and towns under them?

4. [City / Town / Village] (for the sake of consistency and as a matter of policy -- assuming filipino mappers agree, we should not use the "Village" for Barangay's name or eg. "San Lorenzo Village" in makati which is just a subdivision). That it shall be plainly used for "City or Town".  But can we blame a first-time user to use this for a small subdivision village?

What about entries under  "Municipal Boundary"? Will these affect the dropdown menu of City or Town?

BTW, I started doing the Taytay Rizal area moving towards portion of Cainta and Angono. It's really a problem since I encounter entries of Pasig and Marikina (even Manila) in my town. The shape of Pasig and Cainta are really bad. I have a pending edit for Cainta polygon under  "municipal boundary"  --- still pending. I don't know whose moderator in charge.

5. [Locality]: I strongly feel that this will be better used for "Barangay's" category. Always consider that Barangay is the NEXT "sub-level" after "City & Town" as far as administrative control (of local government in the Philippines is concerned). Defined areas of Barangay's are more universal and better defined all over the country.

In your example, Diliman, maybe it works only for Quezon City, but do we have any example where it will apply for the rest of the country (outside of NCR)? I can't find the use for it in Rizal Province.

If so, then how can we use "Sub-Locality " for Barangay, if Barangay is not under any "Locality" category.

6. [Sub-Locality Neighborhood] -- maybe this will be better used for big villages, big subdivisions, or areas (eg. diliman, cubao, etc).  My point is, many big subdivisions are located in between two different barangays, even two different cities or towns (because they are on the city-boundary). It is better to define them as Neighborhood. What do you think? (example: Beverly Hills Subdivion is both under Taytay Rizal and Antipolo City).

7. [Housing Complex / Development]: - maybe this applies for Condo Buildings, Townhouses, Small Subdivision Projects]

We need to sette this issue fast (and desseminate info), since most new users really gets pissed off with foreign moderators (or even Filipino mods, if any), for not explaining to them how to apply this categories for Philippine condition. What they get is plain "denied". Gets? We need to show new users  the guidelines for philippines use of Google Mapmaker. Else we potentially lose great street mappers/tracers because of frustrations with the abusive foreign moderators. For my case, I had to double-time working to increase my contributions so that I don't remain a "new user". :-) We'll so far I've done more than 80km and still going. We all know that moderators don't listen to a new user (unless you put paragraphs of explanations for every data entry).

Regards,
Rally

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 8:28 PM, tasne...@gmail.com <tasne...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey,

I am still confused with the administrative divisions that can be used
in Philippines.
Of what I have been able to figure out, with search results is:

Country- Philippines
State- National Capital Region (Metro Manila)
Districts- Capital district, Eastern Manila district, Camanava,
Southern Manila district
Cities- Manila, Markina, Caloocan, Makati and so on.
Localities- Diliman (Quezon city).
Sub localities- Barangays, for ex. Sto Nino (Markina city)

However, Sto Nino falls under District 1. Now I am not sure if
District 1 has another name, but in this case, District 1 should then
be marked as a Locality?

Hope this is the format for now?

Tas.

On Oct 31, 1:11 pm, Ding <dingra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 30, 12:47 pm, wdmanuel <wdman...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think we should have guidelines on what roads can be changed to what
> > type of roads?
>
> Yes we should, but I don't think it's very important since a road's
> priority may be changed to another priority quite easily.
>
> > Like for example, is East Avenue a local road or a minor arterial? I
> > personally believe it is minor arterial.

> I agree. It may even be considered as major arterial (moderate or high-
> capacity road and lack of residential entrances directly on to the
> road).
>
> The problem I'm seeing is that moderators seem to have their own
> definition of road priorities.  In the past 2 or 3 days, a lot of
> editing has been done on the road priorities of Marikina City by, I
> believe, non-Pinoy moderators.  As accessibility is a high priority to
> the past and previous mayors, Marikina has a lot of minor arterials,
> but after those edits, it now has exactly 1 major arterial and 2 or 3

> minor arterial roads:http://www.google.com/mapmaker?hl=en&q=marikina+city&gw=30&ll=14.6460...

> It's actually accurate, if it was _1975_ or so... ;-)

[wng]

I am mapping places outside of the NCR. I think outside the NCR, your
suggestion makes sense. After the town or city, the next division is
the barangay. So it therefore makes sense to specify that in the
locality. I don't know if all barangays are subdivided into purok,
because I haven't heard the term being used in most urban areas? But
your suggestion seems to fit better rather than leave the Locality
blank all the time for those places outside the NCR.

[Ding]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 6:53 PM, Rally de Leon <ral...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know about areas in NCR, but for provincial areas, the Town is
> subdivided into "Barangay's" (headed by Barangay chairman). Barangay is
> subdivided into "Purok" (headed by Purok Chairman).

All cities and municipalities in the Philippines are subdivided into
barangays. Some barangays in NCR and majority of barangays outside
NCR are further subdivided into puroks.

> What is the equavalent category which will nicely fit for these?

Currently, none, since the smallest political region that is common
nationwide is the barangay.

> Some people
> insist on Locality (for Areas, eg. Diliman) -- just because of the
> definition of Google.... I think Locality should be for Barangay, and
> SubLocality for Purok.

You could try the search function of this group, but I don't think
anyone has used "the definition of Google" as reason for categorizing
geographical districts as Locality. I think that purok should not be
categorized as Sub-Locality because:
(1) Defining puroks is not a nationwide practice for all barangays.
(2) In barangays that do have puroks, hardly anyone includes it in
their address.
(3) Barangays are the smallest political region that is common in all
areas in the Philippines and should be the smallest political region
in GMM as well.

> Subdivisions are normally classified as Gated Community (although some
> don't, those converted to public roads). But there are named areas like
> those for "informal settlers", which are a high density areas (with defined
> perimeters, but no fence or gates), but are officially recognized by the
> Local Government --- This eventually becomes Puroks (or sometimes a
> Community, but it's not gated) This is a good candidate for Sub-Locality.

No, for the simple reason that not all addresses belong to certain
named community. Sub-Locality should be used for the smallest
political region that is common to all addresses.

Also, strictly speaking, a Gated Community is a residential community
where pedestrian and vehicular access is controlled but not
necessarily by fences or gates. I think we can relax the definition a
bit since this seems to me as the most appropriate category. "Housing
Complex / Development" connotes a building or several buildings under
construction or development and "Community" connotes something common
with the residents such as religion or race.

> Else how do we categorize it? I can name a lot in Taytay Rizal: Sapang Pila
> (purok 1), Bagong Sibol (purok 3), Callejon 1 (check the map of taytay and
> you will see that narrow streets barely enough to pass tricycles),
> Bato-bato1 (not a purok but a known area of informal settlers), etc. By
> Google's definition, maybe this fits Neighborhood (but then again, it is
> also Locality).

There's no need to categorize it. The house/lot no., road name and
barangay (Sub-Locality) name or Locality name should be enough
information to locate any address in a certain city/municipality.

> Do we classify the bigger Barangay as "Sub-Locality", and Purok as
> "Locality/Neigborhood"?

If you meant "Do we classify the Barangay as "Locality", and Purok as
"Sub-Locality/Neigborhood"?" then no.

> Will anyone challenge the proposal so we can arrive at a better definition?
> (because I maybe wrong). Most mappers are from NCR and failed to consider
> classifications outside of MetroManila. We need a universal classification.
> Forget Google's definition, we need to localize the defintion (after all, it
> will be applied country-wide).

What we currently have[1] is a universal classification system and
applicable nationwide. The scheme you are proposing is definitely
not.

[1] http://sites.google.com/site/mappingthephilippines/regions

[Ding]

Subdividing a barangay into puroks is a common practice outside of NCR
but rarely practiced within NCR. Also, there are geographical
districts (Locality) outside of NCR such as Medicion, Imus and Zapote,
Bacoor (both in Cavite Province).

I don't think it would be wise to have certain guidelines applicable
only to certain areas. The guidelines should be common nationwide to
minimize confusion.

[Rally de Leon]

Guys,

For some people not familiar with the term Purok, here is short description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purok

How about the term "Sitio" (it's practically the same as purok, but not exactly equal) [eg. Sitio Lagundi. Barangay Muzon in Taytay Rizal]. In actual use of this 'term' in modern times, it's practically referring to a rural neigborhood (about the size of a small subdivision) -- usually those without street names yet. Most of the time, 'one sitio' is treated as 'one purok'. sometimes 'one small legit subdivision' is treated as 'one purok'.

Puroks have a defined territories (covering the whole barangay), and are headed by Purok Leaders or Purok Chairmans. Under the Chairman are the "barangay tanods" -- the ones carrying wooden sticks :-). I'm sure you've heard or seen these people. They are not elected officials, but are merely appointed (AFAIK) and they get paid for their services as volunteers to provide peace and order in a small area (purok).

For informal-settlers covered by a Purok, some still have no street names (even those with areas with legitimate occupants and private landowners). Instead, they use the names of their Sitio (or Purok or the name of their "Neigborhood Association") to specify their postal address. Believe it or not, I know, because I own a company who delivers mail; and it's giving us headaches in finding houses (or a person) in a Sitio (or Purok) with no house number or street name.

To remove Purok as a "sub-locality" of the Barangay is insensitivity to these people. During my days of amateur-gps-mapping of these areas, I've heard these people complaining that Meralco won't give them electricity because they have no street names, much more if we regard Purok (or Sitios) as an "inessential information" of the address system. How can they get simple basic services such as water or electricity? 

Although take note, even areas with established street names are assigned a Purok name or number. They are not just for informal settlers. These system  are not uncommon in many rural/suburb areas in the Philippines (maybe it's an exception in the NCR).

The Local Government (or the congress) has not address this confusing issue. But what can we do, wait for them to act? These people (living in areas where there are no street names) have kids who go to school, applied for jobs, applied for meralco, call an ambulance at some point, requested police assistance, etc. How do they tell these service companes/goverment their find location, by the name of their barangays only?

Mere "Purok" or "Sitio" or "Neigborhood Association" as a "sub-locality address" are confusing as they are, much more if we take them (Purok) out of the address system. Mind you, these areas are not Housing Complex, or Developments, or Gated Communities, and they cannot be identified categorized as such. These sprout like mushrooms in any open areas (with no consent from LGU engineering office or municipal planning office), but they are there by the thousands and thousands. Try zooming in along Floodway area, and the between Taytay and Pasig. They cannot be considered a "minority", in fact they are so many they can decide whose going to win the election. (I actually hate them because most of them don't follow the law, but what can we do? They are still people who needs an "address"). Get my point? We cannot disregard this (purok) as part of the philippine address system.

Going back to the issue (of Sub-locality and Locality) is to check the correct logic (of Google Mapmaker), try editing the detailed address of any street (TRY IT). You will see the "order" by which the "dropdown addresses" are presented. They are as follows (besides House No. and Street Names) :  1.Sub-locality, 2.Locality, 3.City, 4.District/County, 5.State, 6.Country.

In the first example, Sitio Lagundi (used to be a ricefield), is a old neigborhood with connected privately subdivided lots, with roads but no street names, no gates). It's technically private in a sense that the roads were not yet turned over to the government (because of the red tapes) thus no official names, no fundings, but in actual use they're "unpaved local roads", and open to public (no gates, no stickers). Take note:

Juan dela Cruz
Sitio Lagundi, Barangay Muzon
Taytay, Rizal, Philippines.

--- This is an actual address (no house number, no street names), just the "name of the person" living in that area. The whole of Rizal province has a lot like these (whether in Antipolo City, Angono, Binangonan, etc). I know, coz like I said before, we deliver mails, and we are professionals, and we know what we are talking about from based from experience.

Imagine if we will be too insistent in removing or reversing the order: Barangay Muzon (Sub Locality / Neigborhood),  Sitio Lagundi (Locality), Taytay, Rizal, Philippines. This will appear as:

Juan dela Cruz
Barangay Muzon, Sitio Lagundi
Taytay, Rizal, Philippines

or sometimes plainly as:

Juan dela Cruz
Muzon, Sitio Lagundi
Taytay, Rizal, Philippines

 --- Now this is a bit confusing for a rookie manila-messenger (unless of course the goverment standardized it this way). My messengerial business thrives because of this confusions (my local messengers knows the place even with wrong, jumbled, incomplete address information). But it will be unpatriotic to propagate ignorance. We must educate people. This is wrong (and not universally acceptable even by Philpost, the one who sets the standards).  Emotional ba ako about the issue? passionate lang about my mapping, hehe ;-)

BTW, this is not the objective of Google why we have "Google Map Maker" in the first place. They really want to correct the addresses, so that they can use the amateur contribution of POI's in their commercial applications. This is what we are trying to do, to universally standardized the philippine addresses (for free). And It's not for google's sake, but for the emergency services,  the Local government, the delivery & messengerial services, court summons, etc. A lot of mails and services are delayed because of this confusing addresses.

Google happens to be very influential. Feed them garbage data now, and we'll get these garbage-information back from their search engine, when they're feeding this to our cellphones and gps gadgets a few years in the future.

Now if we can only get more people to join in the discussion (it's so simple yet I knew we are all too stubborn defending our issues with our own biases). It's possible that some big city mappers (in the small land area of Metro Manila) won't try to change the Barangay classification (in their mapmaker database) from sub-locality to locality, in consideration for the much bigger rural areas of the Philippines. Well, how about 2 standards? hehe. That won't work I know, but I can show you my data (of typical mail deliveries) and you'll know what I mean.

The main use of "address" to google is for the delivery of services (to work), it's not that they care about how we subdivided regions into provinces, provinces into towns, towns into barangays, and barangays into puroks. They're in business (of selling info to advertisers). So listen to me guys, I'm in the delivery business, try look at it from my perspective. Google is more interested in the system that works, not just for the sake of a uniform database. 

But I know we are also here doing this for fun and hobby. With one objective, the truth (and also improving the services and lives of people). I hope the discussion will be a constructive one.

Sorry, I type very very long post ;-)

cheers,
Rally

[Ding]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but to paraphrase your post, you're
basically saying:

(1) Locality -> Barangay and Sub-Locality -> Purok/Sitio because
addresses such as:

Juan dela Cruz
Sitio Lagundi, Barangay Muzon
Taytay, Rizal, Philippines

would otherwise be undiscoverable.

(2) Absolutely all addresses should be discoverable because of
Google's plan "to use the amateur contribution of POI's in their
commercial applications".

I think we should first be clear about Google's objectives. Google is
a content provider whose main source of revenue is the selling of
advertising space (much like a billboard). In order to generate
traffic to their content, they provide free services such as email
(Gmail), a search engine and street maps (Google Maps, GM). Almost
all of their content have a worldwide audience, except for some like
GM. To further increase traffic to their content, they plan to
implement GM (and other map based services) in most parts of the
world. In order for them to be able to do this, they need mapping
data and this is where GMM comes in. Most of the data that they
gather through GMM is intended to be used for GM and other map-based
services. Google has no intention of standardizing anything.

With regards to your suggested translation of Locality and
Sub-Locality, it seems to me that your sample address would still be
discoverable by categorizing puroks and sitios as "Address / Plot".
This assumes that at least one entrance to the purok/sitio is along an
officially named road. The "Address / Plot" could then use that named
road as its address. The resulting address, if "Sito Lagundi" is the
name of the "Address / Plot", would look something like:

Juan dela Cruz
Sitio Lagundi, 8, J. P. Rizal St., Barangay Muzon
Taytay, Rizal, Philippines

Locality -> Geographical District and Sub-Locality -> Barangay is
still workable with your sample address.

[Rally de Leon]

Ding,

Yup, your example (address) below is still discoverable, because of the keyword "Sitio", and "Barangay". Actually you can present it in any order, and any messenger will still be able to interpret it.

    Juan dela Cruz
    Sitio Lagundi, 8, J. P. Rizal St., Barangay Muzon
    Taytay, Rizal, Philippines

But for maximum compatibility with Philippine Postal Address system, they should do it this way:

[Person's NAME or Business Name]
[Room #], [Floor #], [Building Name] ---->{assuming it's on a building}
[House # or Block-Lot #] [Street Name], [Sitio or Purok or Neigborhood Association or Subdivision or    Housing Dev't],  [Barangay Name]
[Town or City], [Province (if it's a town)]
[Zip Code] [Philippines]

(you are also allowed putting Zip Code on the left of the [Province] the mail is local, and if the [Town's Name] is on the same line as the [Barangay]:

[Person's NAME or Business Name]
[Room Number], [Floor], [Building Name or Condo] ----{assuming it's on a building}
[House No. or Block/Lot No.] [Street Name], [Sitio or Purok or Neigborhood Association or Subdivision]
[Barangay Name], [Town or City]
[Zip Code] [Province (if it's a town)]

Normally, if ALL of the following are absent: [House # and/or Block-Lot No. and/or "Street Name"], people just put the name of their [Sitio or Purok], followed by the [Barangay Name]. It's hard to locate, but still traceable. You just have to look for the Purok Leader and ask the location of that Person. If a person puts only the name of a not-well known [Sitio or Purok] without a [Barangay Name]; or just plain [Barangay Name], we RETURN-TO-SENDER (RTS) with the following remark: [INCOMPLETE ADDRESS]. That's how it's done in practice.

Therefore, in any fill-up form, it is almost mandatory that you put a "Sub-Locality" eg. [Sitio or Purok or Neigborhood Assoc or Subdivision or Housing Dev't] be included in a separate drop-down menu or fill-up boxes, just before the [Barangay Name], so that it doesn't become an RTS mail (incomplete address).

Because to this date, the government designed a format based on NCR address system in mind, where almost all streets have names. In most of the rural areas in the Philippines (even in New Zealand and Australia etc,) we have an different address system to accomodate vast tracks of rawland with a certain populations living in the middle of a farmlands, ricefield, etc. with nothing but "no-name" side street roads and a highway nearby. They just indicate the name of the sub-locality or name of the neighborhood, so that any messenger won't have to travel the entire stretch of nearest major highway in the vicinity. The nearest mile-marker is usually the reference.

FYI, to this date the famous Ortigas Avenue (leading to rizal province) has no street numbers. Can you imagine? Every establishment, House or Building are numbered KM26 Ortigas Ave, KM24 Ortigast Ave, KM27 Ortigas Ave. etc. So in order to trace an address here, you have to look "left and right" of this avenue (for the whole stretch of 1 kilometer), that is, if you were able to find the "Kilometer-Marker Post" by the side of the road. Nice system. Sucks. (They should have thought of dividing the kilometer every 10meters. KM24.35 is much easier to locate than plain KM24, like the way they do it in other countries.  (I'm just making a point) :-)

My plan is to approach a congressman later on, to suggest for a law establishing some sort of "Address" Registry Office or something like that. Another red tape I know, but the service should be fast, computerized (in GIS) and free of charge. And it will be mandatory for all Developers (for their HLURB licence), Neigborhood Association, Businesses to look for their "official address" that follows a certain standard. So people won't have to invent their own postal address formats. They can't be issued a business permit or get a job they present their "official address" assigned to them. (I have an aunt in the US living in a certain "Space (SPC) number". What's a "space"? --- at least they have a system). That's my dream. Let's start settling this with our "Sub-Locality" issue :-)

Cheers,
Rally