Presidential Decree (P.D.) No.

1096, the 1977 National Building Code of the Philippines

(NBCP) is essentially a national development control (DC), stating mainly MINIMUM
standards all aimed at promoting and maintaining public safety and well-being, as the same
relates to the ARCHITECTURAL planning and design of buildings, their contents, their
grounds, their host sites and portions of their environs. For implementation and
enforcement concerns, the NBCP is supported by its 2004 Revised Implementing Rules and
Regulations (IRR) as well as about 30 referral codes (RCs, including professional regulatory
laws or PRLs) and various derivative regulations (DRs) such as DPWH-promulgated
Memorandum Circulars (MCs) that are issued periodically. Being only MINIMUM
standards, the NBCP (and its IRR, RCs and DRs) can all be exceeded by STRICTER or
MORE STRINGENT standards that can be officially promulgated by Government agencies,
including LGUs (which regularly promulgate local laws in the form of ordinances, such as
the zoning ordinance or ZO, which is a local DC), developers and locator associations (e.g.
for business/ industrial parks, subdivisions, condominiums, and the like). With so many laws
and regulations to familiarize with, it has become a continuing challenge to keep up with
the varying interpretations of all these development controls. The 11,000+ Philippine (PH)
registered and licensed architects (RLAs) and eligible mentor-architects (MAs), the other
22,000++ registered architects (RAs), the approx. 3,000++ architectural educators and
the 13,000++ aspirants to the architectural profession must all regard the NBCP as a sort
of "Bible" to professional architectural practice, more so since the NBCP is considered
more of an architectural DC, and again more so, since its 2004 Revised IRR was written in
the language of architecture. Four (4) of the founding trustees of the Architecture
Advocacy International Foundation (AAIF), Inc., the creator organization of this FB web
page, co-wrote said 2004 Revised IRR from 2002 through 2004 (along with 36 other
professionals) and continue to issue periodic interpretations of said IRR. With the advent
of globalization, the knowledge of the NBCP (and its IRR, RCs and DRs) has become all the
more needed and valuable for the concerned RLAs (who are either APEC Architects or
ASEAN Architects), as they are supposed to be the authorities on PH building laws. If You

are a RLA, it is important for You to known the NBCP as failure to understand it can also
mean that You can be charged with the violation of the law (a criminal offense) and
incompetence in practice (an administrative complaint). About 10,000+ RAs who obtained
their certificates and licenses to practice over the period 2007 through 2012 would
probably have a fair to good understanding of the NBCP as it was required stock knowledge
in order to pass the licensure examination for architects (LEA) during said years. With
this web page, the AAIF hopes to foster much greater public awareness and a better
understanding of the NBCP and how it can materially affect our lives and our respective
professional practices. Thank You.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/BuildingCode.Ph/