City population rising steadily

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City’s population continues to grow based on figures from the Civil Registrar’s Office that showed that while at least 14 persons die throughout the city everyday, 92 babies are also born.

Cebu City Civil Registrar Evangeline Abatayo said there were 2,124 recorded deaths from January to May this year, but there were also 13,923 births recorded in the city during the same period.

Abatayo said there were 1,953 deaths and 14,463 recorded births during the same period last year.

Durinda Macasocol, assistant chief of the City Epidemiology Statistics and Surveillance Unit, said cardiovascular disease is the main cause of mortality.

While there were only 13,923 births recorded in the city from January to May this year, but the Office of the Civil Registrar headed by Abatayo had issued 21,481 birth certificates during the five months period.

“Basin daghan tingali ang late nga mikuha og birth certificates mao nga daghan ang naisyu nato nga certificates compared as number of births,” Abatayo said.

The statistics also showed that the total number of couples who got married had decreased this year from 1,928 to only 1,529. The officials of the National Statistics Office earlier believe that some of the couples just decided to live without the blessing of matrimony because of the economic crisis.

Meanwhile, the City Hall’s Bids and Awards Committee already bid out the construction of a three-storey building for the Office of the Civil Registrar’s Office that will be built in a lot behind the City Health department along Gen. Maxilom Ave.

Abatayo said her office continues the digitization of their old records and those records from 2004 up to last year were already scanned. The project is aimed to facilitate speedy issuance by digital processing, protect the documents from constant handling and exposure and preserve it for posterity. – (FREEMAN)