Lined up at a series of long tables bearing rice and chicken, 108 couples held each other close as they swayed to the gentle rhythms of a marital anthem. Which happened after they received their wedding presents, fed each other cake, and recited vows under the direction of the city mayor.
“Everyone is happy and excited!” exclaimed Liza Amora, who heads the marriage division of Surigao City, where Valentine’s Day community weddings have been an annual tradition since 1988. “This makes it official and legitimizes their children.”
Group weddings, of course, aren’t unique to the Philippines. On the same day the barong-suited grooms got hitched to their white-gowned brides in Surigao, a group described by the local newspaper as “dozens of couples” got married at The Cute Little Chapel, a private venue in my hometown of Long Beach, California. And another 23 pledged their commitment at the Sweetheart Winery in the appropriately named metropolis of Loveland, Colorado.
There is something decidedly different, though, about the way it’s done in the Philippines. Number one, the wedding events can realistically be called “massive.” Second, most participants already cohabitate and have children, though not yet legally bonded often due to economic circumstances. Third, such events occur regularly in hundreds, if not thousands, of barangays and municipalities nationwide, usually financed by public funds. And, finally, they represent the generally traditional Filipino view of family life and marriage.
“Family is the basic unit of society,” Dasmarinas City Mayor Jenny Barzaga told 643 of the 1,336 couples exchanging Valentine’s Day vows in Cavite. “So, when the family is in order, the community is also in order.”
It’s a view I have long shared. Which is why, even while recognizing the problematic nature of unhappy marriages and sympathizing with those stuck in them, I also secretly admire the Philippines’ strict prohibition of divorce. And have often decried the state of affairs in my native land, where divorce is about as common as, well, having blue eyes.
“Family is paramount in the Philippines,” I wrote back in 2021, “and divorce is simply not an option.” Compare that to the United States, where automatic, uncontested divorce is as close as the nearest courthouse, a destination towards which nearly half of all couples eventually tread.
But here’s the thing; despite being the veteran of two divorces myself, my eyes are anything but blue. Which is why I appreciate living in a country where legal separation is neither encouraged nor allowed.
That’s doesn’t mean everything on the national marital stage is perfect, far from it. I personally know of several Filipino husbands who have abandoned their families to the whims of fate, both financially and otherwise. And therefore, applaud the wise lawmakers who recently introduced HB 8987—the Paternal Child Support Responsibility Act of 2023—to force irresponsible non-custodial parents in the Philippines, particularly fathers, to support their children as they are legally required to do in the US and practically every other nation on earth.
That said, there’s also an instinctive recognition here of marriage’s importance as an institution in its own right. Which was obvious from the answers I got in Surigao when asking wedding participants why they were bothering to get married so late in the game.
In a typical response, one couple—already together for four years with a two-year-old daughter—stared at me for several seconds, deeply puzzled by the question. Then, taking a deep breath, the new husband tried to explain as if speaking to a child. “I was nervous, but now I’m happy,” he said. “I’m in my perfect place. I have a wife.”
It was the answer you get in a country where marriage is more than just a matter of convenience. “You may now kiss the bride,” Mayor Pablo Dumlao II announced when the ceremony was over.
And so, they all did.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Surigao City, Philippines. His latest book, Dark Skies, is now available for preorder on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
