ILOILO City – In line with the celebration of the Civil Registration Month this February 2019, two municipalities in Guimaras province conducted the civil mass wedding in time for the Valentine’s Day celebration on Feb. 14, in a separate venue wherein, 82 couples benefited – 36 from the municipality of Jordan and 46 from Buenavista.
With the initiative, the local government units are helping couples who are living together without the benefits of legalizing their partnership considering the expenses needed for the ceremony, thus, the free mass wedding was realized to provide them the opportunity to legalize their relationship as husband and wife, and above all to address the problem on illegitimate children who shall be legitimated thru the subsequent marriage of their parents.
As a manifestation of their valuable support to the activity, the local officials of each municipality, Nelida B. Losare, Philippine Statistics Authority – Guimaras Provincial Statistics officer, and the Municipal Civil Registrars of the other municipalities of Guimaras province were present in the said events.
The civil mass wedding was officiated by the Honorable Mayor of each municipality who also gave
their piece of advice on the importance of marriage, trust, respect, and good decisions in carrying out their responsibilities as parents and good citizenry of the country.
Losare stressed out the importance of wedding rights in the lives of a family as a cure to the problem on illegitimate children, the right of a child to have a name, the need of a child’s birth to be registered, and the responsibility of the parents to check the correctness and completeness of entries in the registered documents before affixing their signature.
Two more civil mass weddings are lined up for the month of February: San Lorenzo in Feb. 19 and Nueva Valencia in Feb. 20. Mass weddings are one of the activities conducted by the local government units in Guimaras province thru the efforts of the Municipal Civil Registrars strongly supported by the Philippine Statistics Authority Guimaras Provincial Statistical Office (PSA-Guimaras) in consonance with Presidential Proclamation No. 682 issued by the then President Corazon C. Aquino on Jan. 28, 1991./PN
