The Local Civil Registry Office recorded an increase in live births by 7.35 percent last year compared to those in the previous year.
Local Civil Registrar Luz Perez claimed that from 6,844 live births in 2022, it increased to 7,347 in 2023.
She added that of the recorded live births, 50.18 percent were born out of wedlock while 49.72 percent were legitimate births, noting that the number of illegitimate children exceeded the number of legitimate births last year.
Further, the local civil registrar also noted the increase in the number of deaths last year which was pegged at 12.61 percent or a total of 2,955 reported deaths last year compared to the 2,624 deaths during the previous year.
Perez claimed that there were also 93 infant deaths that were reported last year which is 16.25 percent higher than the infant deaths recorded during the previous year.
According to her, there were also more males who died last year with 1,658 compared to 1,297 female deaths during the same period.
However, she stipulated that there was a 2.57 percent decrease in the number of marriage registrations last year where there were 1,858 marriages registered compared to the 1,907 registered marriages in 2022.
Perez explained that church rites accounted for the majority of the registered marriages at 61 percent while civil rites comprised the remaining 38.05 percent.
The Local Civil Registry Office received and processed a significant number of petitions filed under Republic Act (RA) 9048 as amended by RA 10172 with a total of 1,130 cases last year which increased by 24.45 percent from the similar documents that were processed during the previous year.
Perez said that there were some 112 court decrees that were also registered with 50.89 percent of them related to the nullity of marriage.
She disclosed that the local civil registry office made significant progress in digitalizing civil registry documents as the said office was able to successfully scan documents from 1945 up to December last year with a total of 89,836 birth certificates indexed.
Perez asserted that the digitalization process had greatly improved their verification and issuance of certified copies, reducing the time it takes to process requests from 5 to 15 minutes to just 1 to 2 minutes.
She underscored that the said effort had minimized errors and helped preserve the original books from constant pulling out from the archives.
The Local Civil Registry Office had also been conducting various information, education and communication activities on mobile registration and among other related activities in the different barangays that aims to inform the people on the importance of civil registration. By Dexter A. See
