[1] Prior to its creation, ULAP was called the "League of Leagues", which played an important convening role for the local governments to lobby and develop the Local Government Code of 1991.
ULAP was created to convene and represent its member leagues and local governments to national and sub-national policy and program committees in continuous pursuit of strengthening and capacitating LGUs for local autonomy and good governance.
[2] Two weeks later, a Resolution was made that changed the name of League of Leagues, which was established on May 5, 1997, to the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) in order to give it a distinct personality as an associate member of the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) and to register the same with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It strongly believes that, to improve the delivery of services and to achieve “inclusive growth”, stronger national and local government coordination must be realized.
In this strategy, ULAP envisions: • To be a venue for transformative governance at the local level • Serve as catalyst to localize national development • To bridge various stakeholders to gather capacity and various resources This is a list of presidents since 1998:[7]