A municipality (bayan in Filipino) is a local government unit in the Philippines. Provinces are composed of cities and municipalities. Municipalities, in turn, are composed of barangays. Municipalities are also called towns, which actually is a better translation of bayan.
A municipality is headed by a municipal mayor who is the executive officer. The legislature is composed of the vice-mayor (bise-mayor) and eight councilors (kagawad or konsehal). The eight councilors, plus the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) (Youth Council) President and the ABC President, forms the Sangguniang Bayan (Municipal Council). All are elected public officials who serve terms of three years and maximum of three consecutive terms.
A municipality, upon reaching a certain size, may opt to become a city. First, a bill must be passed in Congress and signed into law by the President and then the residents would vote in the succeeding plebiscite to accept or reject cityhood. One benefit in being a city is that the city government gets more budget, but taxes are much higher, compared to municipalities.
