This Special Release presents the Vital Statistics on the registered vital events at the Local Civil Registry Offices in the 10 municipalities of Mountain Province which were forwarded to the Office of the Civil Registrar General. Data on births, marriages and deaths were tabulated from the Vital Events Information (VEI) of the Provincial Office. Thus, not yet the final data. The official vital statistics will be released by Central Office.

More Couples Prefer Civil Wedding Ceremony

Mountain Province registered a total of 193 marriages in the 1st Quarter of 2025. Out of these registered marriages, 133 couples or 68.91 percent were solemnized through civil weddings while 60 couples or 31.09 percent were solemnized through church weddings. This could be translated to about three in every ten marriages were civil weddings. Bauko municipality made up 36.84 percent of the total civil weddings in the province with the Municipality of Tadian coming in second at 12.78 percent share while Natonin came in third with a 12.03 percent. Barlig and Sabangan registered the least number of civil weddings. Distinctly, the municipalities of Barlig and Besao registered no church weddings (Figure 1).

About Nine in Every Ten Marriages are Registered Timely

A duly accomplished Certificate of Marriage must be submitted to the Local Civil Registry Office (LCRO) not later than 15 days after the date of marriage. Otherwise, the registration will be tagged as delayed. Of the total 193 registered marriages, 190 or 98.45 percent -were registered in a timely manner and 3 marriages or 1.55 percent were registered late.

Of the marriages registered timely, 34.21 percent were in Bauko. Coming in next is Bontoc accounting for 12.11 percent and Natonin came in third accounting for 11.58 percent. The remaining 42.1 percent were registered in the rest of the municipalities of the province.

On the other hand, Sabangan, Sadanga and Tadian recorded 1 late registration each (Figure 2).
 

Majority of couples got married at ages 25 to 29 years old

Of the total number of registered marriages in the Province, most grooms and brides belong to the age group 25 to 29 years old. Dissecting it by sex, there are more brides in this age group with 76 or 39.38 percent share than grooms with 63 or 32.64 percent share.

On the other hand, the number of teenage brides (9 or 4.66 percent share) is higher than that of the teenage grooms (4 or 2.07 percent share) (Figure 3).

For the age group 20 to 24 years old, there are more brides with 43 or 22.28 percent share than grooms with 37 or 19.17 percent share. On the contrary, more grooms got married at ages 30 to 34 years old with 26.94 percent than brides with 15.54 percent share (Figure 3).

TECHNICAL NOTES

•    Marriage - is a contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life.

•    Timely registration - submission of Certificate of Marriage to the LCRO where the marriage was solemnized within fifteen (15) days. 

•    Late registration – submission of Certificate of Marriage to the LCRO beyond the reglementary period.
 

JERRY G. SANTOS
Chief Statistical Specialist

/AVRF