BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) reported that the number of registered births in the region reached 39,557 last year which slightly increased by 0.07 percent from the 39,531 births registered during the previous year.
Based on data released by the agency, there were 108 babies born daily both in 2016 and 2017 and about 4.5 babies born every hour in the region.
The PSA-CAR added that Benguet had the highest number of births with 16,941, which is around 42.8 percent of the total registered births regionwide. It is followed by Kalinga with 5,691 registered births, Abra with 5,303 and Mountain Province with 4,274 births.
On the other hand, the PSA-CAR noted that Ifugao and Apayao had the lowest number of registered births with 4,018 and 3,330, respectively.
According to the statistics agency, the highest number of registered births was recorded in the Month of May with 3,577 births or 9 percent of the total live births last year, followed by the month of November with 3,535 registered births and October with 3,523 registered births.
Consequently, the PSA-CAR stated that the month of April had the least number of births registered with 2,808.
The PSA-CAR claimed that vital statistics are derived from information obtained at the time when the occurrences of vital events and their characteristics are inscribed in a civil registry. The vital acts and events are the births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages and all such events that have something to do with an individual’s entrance and departure from life, together with the changes in civil status that may occur to a person during his or her lifetime.
The recording of the said events in an individual’s life in the civil registry is known as vital or civil registration and the resulting documents are called vital records.
Under the definition released by the agency, live birth is a complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of the pregnancy, which after such separation, breaches or shows any other evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; its product of such a birth is considered live born.
The PSA-CAR releases data relative to certain economic and population indicators to serve as a basis for policy makers and decision makers in crafting the appropriate programs, projects and activities that will be implemented in a certain geographical location for purposes of socio-economic growth and welfare of the people living in their respective jurisdictions.
By Dexter A. See
