By Zaldy Comanda
BAGUIO CITY – Civil Registry and Health authorities sounded the alarm on the number of teenage pregnancies in the city since records showed that ten percent of all births in the city involved teenaged mothers.
(PIXABAY / MANILA BULLETIN)
Bernardita Tabin, Assistant City Local Civil Registrar, said of the 9,867 births recorded by her office last year, 966 were delivered by teenaged mothers (15 to 19), while 353 of the reported 4,192 births for the first five months of this year were also delivered by teenage mothers from the same age group.
Of the total number of births last year, 52.69 percent involved legally married mothers while 47.39 percent were described to be illegitimate births.
She pointed out that the cases of teenage mothers and illegitimate children are considered to be in the alarming stage.
Thus, concerned government agencies and the various offices of the local government must closely work together in crafting and formulating the implementation of doable strategies that will address the problem and prevent the continuous increase in the said cases.
Tabin claimed that more than 60 percent of those who give birth in the various health facilities in the city are bonafide residents of the city’s 128 barangays while close to 40 percent are from neighboring towns and provinces who opt to deliver their children in the health-based facilities in the city.
Tabin reported that 1,704 couples got married in the city last year and 902 in the first five months of this year.
She claimed that most of the marriages have been recorded in the month of June and the later months of the year, thus, the number of marriages is expected to significantly increase by the end of the year.
The local Civil Registry Office is in charge of recording three important aspects in the life of an individual which is birth, marriage and death aside from providing allied services related to the said instances.