14 February 2011

The State of Pinoy Love

Currently, Pinoy love largely revolves around long distance relationships. Almost every Pinoy family has a member working abroad, and almost every family member is financially supporting someone back home. Pinoy love has basically become Pinoy family love over the seas.

Family reverence started when the Malays landed in the country’s shores. If not for parents, children wouldn’t have middle names and last names.

The composition of a Pinoy family varies nowadays, though. Influenced by the Spanish conquistadores, extended families had become the norm. Who belongs to which family depended on the rituals and ceremonies partaken as well as the monetary remittances and forms of gratitude received.

That aspect of Pinoy love would not be debatable if sacramental unions in the Philippines are not continuously questioned. The 1-Ako Babaeng Astig Aasenso (1-ABAA), which did not win in the recently concluded elections, proposed a 10-year expiration period to marriage contracts. Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares filed House Bill 3952 to shorten annulment processes.

Some sociologists also frown upon long distance relationships. According to them, love could die and it would be better if the two individuals would just move on.

Executive Order No. 209 (otherwise known as The Family Code of the Philippines) defined marriage as ‘a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life. It is the foundation of the family and an inviolable social institution whose nature, consequences, and incidents are governed by law and not subject to stipulation.’

Let Pilipina Ako stress on the word inviolable.

Divorce is becoming prevalent in other countries, though. And while there is no regulation for that in the Philippines, the highest court in the land allows itself to ‘exempt one spouse from living with the other if the latter should live abroad’ (Article 69), grant relief (Article 72), and impose conditions ‘if a spouse without just cause abandons the other or fails to comply with his or her obligations to the family’ (Article 101)


The State of PNoy’s Love

If the rumors and reports on PNoy's personal life will be verified, the first bachelor president’s type of gal would be a fair-skinned, chiseled-face chinita.

Valenzuela City councilor Shalani Soledad had been PNoy’s girlfriend before he was elected president. Patricia Ann Roque had been a child star. Barbie Palagos was seen with PNoy at the Nuvo Restaurant and Wine Bar in Greenbelt 2. Liz Uy is a fashion magazine editor, presidential stylist and former girlfriend of actor John Lloyd Cruz.

To date, PNoy had kept his love life private. There were rumors though that he has been going out with Len Lopez, a stockbroker of the Deutsche Bank.


As of September 2009, there are 1.9 million Pinoys working abroad. These overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are mostly from the Calabarzon, Central Luzon and the National Capital Region (NCR).

There were also more male OFWs than female OFWs that year. But of the female OFWs, more than half of them ages 25-34 years old.

Filipino men and women ranked family, health and religion as the three most important things in life. Love mattered more than sex for men as it is for women. (National Statistical Coordination Board)

References

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