More than 100 Muslim couples tie the knot in Cotabato

Cotabato City- CARD Mutual Benefit Association, Inc. (CARD MBA), the insurance arm of CARD Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI), recently hosted a mass wedding to 110 Muslim couples, who are CARD members, in Biton Garden and Convention Center in Cotabato City.

Marriage is an integral part in one’s life but few are given a chance especially the socio-economically challenged, causing a major delay in getting married and getting a marriage license.  To help them enjoy the benefits of legal marriage, CARD MBA hosted a mass wedding together with CARD, Inc., one of the leading microfinance institutions in the Philippines. Both are member institutions of CARD MRI.

Mass wedding is an additional service given to members of CARD who have live-in partners and have been members of the Association for at least 10 months prior to the wedding celebration. The Association shoulders the expenses in getting the necessary documents for the wedding, except for the Certificate of No Marriage or CENOMAR.

“We are thankful that CARD offers this kind of service because most of us were wed traditionally and we have no marriage contracts. Here we now have marriage contracts, which we can use not only in claiming benefits from the Association but in other transactions with private and government offices,” shared in local language by a group of newlyweds.

This is the second time that CARD MBA hosted a mass wedding in the province of Cotabato. The first was in Buluan with 50 couples from the Maguindanao tribe. All of them are also CARD MRI members. To date, the said service was enjoyed by 812 couples since it was first offered in 2002.

Atty. Suharto O. Amad, OIC-registrar in Sharia Court, a muslim court, expressed his gratitude to CARD for having the same aspiration like them in focusing to the needs of Muslim families. He also gamely and briefly mentioned other benefits, products and services of the Association that newlyweds can enjoy.

The CARD MBA, which operates nationwide has total insured individuals of 10,694,765 with a total claims payment of Php 691,442,962 as of December 2014. -Lynie Joy T. Ambatang