The newly-weds pose for a souvenir photo at the townhall of Lala, Lanao del Norte on Sunday, 20 March 2021. MindaNews photo by MARIVIC DAVIS
LALA, Lanao del Norte (MindaNews / 21 March) – At least 1,261 couples tie the knot on Sunday during the mass wedding ceremony as part of this town’s 73rd foundation anniversary and 21st Alimango Festival celebrations.
The grooms and brides, some living together unwed for decades already, beamed either in suits or barong tagalogs and gowns sponsored by Everca Foundation during the wedding ceremony organized by Mayor Angel Yap.
Last year, the town canceled the festival due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, it is under the Alert Level 1 COVID-19 category.
Yap said the Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 allowed them to hold the wedding ceremony due to the town’s low-risk COVID-19 alert status.
“We want their union blessed by the church. They are now legally married and their offspring are now legitimate children,” the mayor said.
Yap said they earlier conducted a survey and found out that many of their constituents were not married due to financial constraints.
Virginia Yap, Everca chief executive officer, said they agreed to shoulder all the wedding expenses of the unmarried couples since their foundation “is all about helping women.”
Organizers also sponsored the wedding party for them.
One of the couples who were part of the free mass wedding ceremony are Darius Ayongao, 51, and Ana Posadas, 43. They have been living together for 23 years and blessed with five children prior to the wedding. Ayongao is a farmer and accepts other odd jobs to augment the family’s income while Posadas takes care of the household. They lived in a small, decrepit house.
Darius Ayongao and Ana Posadas on their way to the wedding ceremony. MindaNews photo by MARIVIC DAVIS
One of their children, Leo, a working student taking criminology, convinced his parents to get married after learning of the free wedding program of the local government. Leo is a casual employee of the local government, which offered him the job after he returned the P100,000 cash he found to its owner. Leo has become viral in social media for his honesty.
“We really wanted to get married but financial constraints got in the way,” Darius said in the vernacular. “We were too excited that we woke up at 3 a.m. to prepare for the occasion.”
Another couple, Salvador Lopez, 32, Jane Estrada, 41, who are both persons with disabilities, have been living together for six years prior to the wedding.
Estrada, whose one eye is blind due to physical abuse by her deceased husband, met Lopez, a cargo truck driver, in Ozamis City. The couple is blessed with two children.
When they heard the news about the free wedding, Lopez immediately asked Estrada to get married.
They make hollow blocks for a living, earning two pesos per piece, which is just enough for their needs, including their children’s school expenses.
“If not for the local government, we will not get married because of the expenses. We don’t earn too much money,” he said. (Marivic Davis / MindaNews)
