Virginity used to be associated with life itself for Filipina girls and women. You only lose it to your husband and you do not lose it before marriage. The moment a Filipina breaches this standard, it would be like virtual death for her. Losing virginity at the wrong time and letting people know it are an affront to family pride more than they offend personal well being.

In the Philippines, family reputation is sacred. Her family, friends and community would ostracise her. She could not look forward to a bright future. Flipino men, even those who engage themselves in pre-marital sex, would not find her worthy of attention.

That was then. It is quite different now. Today’s youth engage freely in sex. Girls hardly mind losing their virginity like they used to. Men are not as stringent in rejecting a non-virgin for a wife.

Cases of teenage pregnancies and single parents are on the rise. The phenomenon is significant enough to move the Philippine government to enact a law protecting the interests of single parents. Surveys after surveys are confirming research data that show majority of young people aged from 15 to 35 have engaged themselves in pre-marital sex for at least once in their lives.

Losing virginity and ending up a single parent, along with poverty, have been recognized as the single strongest force that pushed Filipinas to seek employment in the country and overseas. The rise in number of single parents has impacted on the workplace and on the dating habits of Filipinas.

Today, Filipina workers outnumber their male counterparts, and have proceeded to earn a distinct reputation for their diligence. Unfortunately, some of them could not do better than take refuge in girlie bars and prostitution joints.

Filipina single parents also comprise a large segment of the online dating community. Despite rapid changes in Philipine culture particularly in relation to virginity, Filipinas still find it culturally liberating to date with foreigners online.

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Like most any other country, the Philippines is rich in customs and traditions handed down from generation to generation. While Filipinos were able to preserve most of these olden and even revered practices, some of the were products of foreign influence, assimilated in the native culture and nurtured through time.

Filipino customs and traditions evolved from religious beliefs and/or superstitions. They find expression in a wide range of daily activities, from farming to commerce, courtship, birth, marriage, family, death, relationships, among many others.

Interestingly, every region, province and even municipality in the Philippines has two or more customs or traditions that are uniquely their own. This is especially true in the countryside, where customs endure on the strength of collective acceptance by their people. Some of them have been institutionalized as annual events or festivals.

Two classic and popular examples of these showcased customs and traditions are the fiesta celebrations and the cenaculo. While the former takes on a variety of forms, themes, creativity and normally project a festive mood, the latter is a more subdued practice depicting the life and death of Jesus Christ. Both, however, have religious gist and history. Fiestas honor and thank the saints for a plentiful harvest and the cenaculo serves as venue for remembering the life, suffering and death of Christ. Both are occasions for collective or individual piety.

Other well-known Filipino customs and traditions include the selection of godparents along with marking the significance of baptism as one’s anointment into the Christian world. In courtship, the serenading and voluntary housework of young men as a way to win their lady’s affection was common in the olden times.

In marriage, the groom-to-be is restricted from seeing or speaking to his soon-to-be bride on eve of their wedding day, in the same way that the wife-in-waiting is restricted from trying on her wedding dress on that same day, for fear that the wedding itself may not materialize.

These and other customs and traditions define the uniqueness of the Filipino people. They reflect their history and the social evolution they went through.

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