Barangay Payatas

Physical Features

Located northeast of Quezon City, Barangay Payatas occupies a little less than twenty percent (20%) of the city’s land area and has about fifteen percent (15%) of the city’s total population. Payatas shares a border with La Mesa Dam to the north, Barangay Bagong Silangan to the east, Barangay Batasan Hills to the south, and Barangay Commonwealth to the west (see Map 1). Until today, about a third of the land in various parts of Payatas is being claimed in disputes between the municipalities of Montalban and San Mateo, as well as the barangays of Commonwealth and Fairview.

Land Area and Land Use

Payatas is characterized by a steep and sloping terrain, crisscrossed by creeks, rivers, ravines, and low-lying areas near the Marikina River. A fault line runs through its eastern boundary. A large part of the area is classified as medium residential zone that includes housing subdivisions, depressed or informal settlements, and undeveloped areas.

Covering a total land area of 774 hectares, a greater portion of Payatas is privately owned (681 ha, or 88%; see Chart 1). Government-owned land, which includes the four-hectare national government complex (NGC) and the Quezon City property, covers a smaller portion (12%; 93 hectares) of the total land area. While portions of the privately-owned area were already developed into residential subdivisions, a vast area (80%) has yet to be fully developed. Nonetheless, despite the poor access and lack of services and facilities, these areas continue to attract a large number of informal settlers from various areas of Metro Manila.


Around the 1970s, upon the initiative of a former barangay official, Barangay Payatas was divided into two major settlement clusters (Area A and Area B) to organize the route of public vehicles. Each area, with its large population and land area, was further subdivided to allow for easier information dissemination and reporting to and from the barangay (see Table 1 below). The larger Area B is further subdivided into Groups 1 to 13 and Phases I to IV in Lupang Pangako, consisting of around 5,000 families where the poorest of the poor are located. Another distinguishing feature of Payatas is found in Area B, the 13 hectare garbage dumpsite known as the Payatas Dumpsite