A purok (English: district[1] or zone) is an informal division within a barangay in the Philippines.[2][3] While not officially considered a local government unit (LGU), a purok often serves as a unit for delivering services and administration within a barangay.[4]
A purok is typically composed of twenty to fifty or more households, depending on the particular geographical location and cluster of houses.[4] The term purok is often applied to a neighborhood (zone) within an urbanized barangay, or a portion (district) of a less densely populated, but still relatively geographically compact, barangay. This contrasts with the sitio, which is usually a cluster of households (hamlet) in a more dispersed, rural barangay.
If created and given a mandate by an ordinance of the barangay, municipality, or city, a purok could perform government functions under the coordination and supervision of their local officials.[4] Sometimes, a member of the Sangguniang Barangay (Barangay Council) may be recognized as the leader of their purok.[5]
New barangays are often created by officially enumerating which puroks and/or sitios are included within the territory.[6][7] On rare occasions, a purok may also be enumerated in the creation of a municipality, as in the case of Shariff Saydona Mustapha, Maguindanao where the puroks of Libutan East and Pagatin I were directly named as one of the constituent parts of the new municipality.[8] These two puroks were later recognized as full-fledged barangays by the Philippine Statistics Authority in early 2010.[9]
