More Pinoys going abroad to find partner

MANILA, Philippines - More and more Filipinos are leaving the country not just to seek overseas employment, but also to find a partner in life.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) yesterday reported a three-fold increase in the number of Filipinos opting to tie the knot with foreigners in the hope of finding a better future.

Minda Cabilao-Valencia, CFO deputy executive director, said based on their records, an average of 24,000 Filipinos leave the country annually to get married abroad.

“Part of the CFO’s mandate is to provide counseling to Filipinos who are getting married to foreigners, and on a daily average, about 79 Filipinos undergo this counseling,” Valencia said in an interview.

Valencia added that the CFO has also observed a significant increase in the number of Filipinos who leave the country as fiancés or spouses to foreign nationals for the past 20 years.

From a total of 7,819 in 1989, Valencia said the average of fiancés to foreign nationals leaving the country annually rose to 21,100 in 2005 then to 23,927 in 2007.

“We have already recorded a total of 333,672 Filipino spouses to foreign nationals from 1989 to 2007 and a majority or 90 percent of them were female from the National Capital Region and Central Luzon,” Valencia revealed.

While 33 percent of them claimed to have met their partners by personal introduction, Valencia noted that 20 percent admitted meeting their future spouses through the Internet.

“Internet has become a common mode of meeting a foreign spouse since the start of 2000,” she said.

Most of those who have attended the CFO marriage counseling insisted that they are marrying the foreigners because of love, but Valencia said that CFO data would also prove that many Filipinos are opting to marry foreign nationals just so they could go abroad and work.

Valencia said they have observed significant growth in the number of Filipinos going to Japan as spouses when the Japanese government restricted the hiring of Filipino entertainers to Japan.

Aside from Japan, Valencia said the other top destinations for Filipinos leaving the country for marriage abroad are the US, Australia, Germany and South Korea.

According to Valencia, Vietnam and Indonesia have also recorded an increasing number of intermarriages, but the Philippines posted a significantly higher number of cases than other Asian countries.

Although those who attended the marriage counseling were encouraged to submit a feedback to CFO after reaching their destinations, Valencia said most of them did not comply with the request thus there is no data to indicate if the marriages were successful or not.

To analyze the trends and dynamics of intermarriage in Southeast Asia, the CFO is sponsoring a forum tomorrow as part of a series of activities lined up for the Month of Filipino Overseas celebration.

The highlight of the celebration would be the giving of the First CFO Awards to groups and individuals who performed outstanding service for the protection of the rights of Filipino migrants here and abroad.

The awardees led by organizations based in the United Kingdom and Lebanon would be honored in a ceremony on Dec. 18 at the Imperial Suites Hotel in Quezon City.