I believe that the divisions shown in "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries" were correct, and not the ISO standard. The book listed 78 provinces (including Metropolitan Manila) as the primary subdivisions of the Philippines. It listed sixteen regions, which are groupings of provinces. It listed sixty chartered cities. The chartered cities are technically distinct from the provinces, and have a province-like status. The book identified the chartered cities as sub-units of the provinces in which they're located, for several reasons. On maps and in statistical lists, they're usually grouped with their provinces. If they were kept as separate entities, that would have given the Philippines a total of 138 primary divisions, which is an excessive number to deal with. The chartered cities were dropped from the final version of the ISO standard, showing that ISO apparently agreed with this judgment. Also, consider how the chartered cities are handled by the PSGC. Their codes show them to be subordinate to provinces in the hierarchy.
