Recently, I got hold of a leaflet entitled "2000 Census of Population and Housing" issued by the National Statistics Office. Some of the data in this leaflet can arouse curiosity.

For starters, I can cite the sex ratio. This refers to the number of males per 100 females. The regional ratio (for Eastern Visayas) is 104, meaning there are 104 male individuals per 100 females.

In such a situation, there will be males who will remain single for the simple reason that there are more of them than the females. This could also mean that females can be more selective and "pakipot" because there is a lot of competition for them. This could also mean the males must be more aggressive precisely because the females are in short supply. There are many other possibilities.

Another statistic worth noting refers to those common law or live-in partners. As of 2000, there were 209,997 of them in this situation out of a total population of about 2.1 million who are at least 15 years old. This figure is also around 20 percent of those who are legally married.

Is getting legally married slowly getting " out of fashion"? Are there more "trial marriages" these days? Are there impediments to those couples getting legally married?

I wonder. These statistics can really make us think.