Marriage is losing its luster for many in the Philippines, with an increasing number of couples starting families out of wedlock, the government census office said yesterday.
More than 37 percent of the 1.78 million babies born in Asia’s Roman Catholic outpost in 2008 had unmarried mothers, it said in a statement, citing results of the latest population census.
This was 12.5 percent higher than the previous year and compared to 2 percent increase for all births, the census office said.
A growing number of Filipinos now treat
marriage as an option, rather than a requirement, for starting families, said Nene Baligad, a member of a unit of the National Statistics Office that licenses people who officiate weddings.
“Nowadays, some couples just live in and only get married after having four or five children,” she told Agence Feance Presse.
“You can’t really say it’s for practical reasons, since you can be married on the cheap. It’s more like, we Filipinos tend to follow what is in fashion.”
Eight out of 10 Filipinos are Catholics, and the Philippines is one of only three territories in the world, along with Malta and the Vatican, where divorce remains banned.
However the census showed that many couples were defying the nation’s powerful Catholic bishops by not only on having babies out of wedlock, but also by shunning church weddings.
Marriages either solemnized by the church or by government officials fell 0.7 percent to 486,514 in 2008, according to the census.
Just over a third of couples were married in Catholic ceremonies, while four in 10 chose civil rites officiated by a person licensed by the census office.
Manila couple Alvin Ruiz, 24, and his girlfriend, Joann Lopez, told AFP as they visited the Manila Zoo that they started living in together four years ago and now had a three-year-old son.
“Instead of spending for a wedding, we used the money to buy infant milk,” said Ruiz, who earns a living by buying used cooking oil from restaurants then selling them to companies that turn them into fuel for motor vehicles. –Daily Tribune
July 2025
Nutrition Month
“Give us much more than P50 increase
for proper nutrition!”
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO Constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar
to carry out the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry recommendations
against serious violations of
Forced Labour and Freedom of Association protocols.
Accept National Unity Government (NUG)
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July
3 July – International Day of Cooperatives
3 July – International Plastic Bag Free Day
5 July – World Youth Skills Day
7 July – Global Forgiveness Day
11 July – World Population Day
17 July – World Day for International Justice
28 July – World Nature Conservation Day
30 July – World Day against Trafficking in Persons
Monthly Observances:
Schools Safety Month
Nutrition Month
National Disaster Consciousness Month
Weekly Observances:
Week 2: Cultural Communities Week
Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise
Development Week
Week 3: National Science and
Technology Week
National Disability Prevention and
Rehabilitation Week
July 1-7:
National Culture Consciousness Week
July 13-19:
Philippines Business Week
Week ending last Saturday of July:
Arbor Week
Daily Observances:
First Saturday of July:
International Cooperative Day
in the Philippines
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