SAN LEONARDO, Nueva Ecija, November 26, 2011-After 31 long and agonizing years of “living-in” together, a 67-year-old farmer finally took his 74-year-old girlfriend home as his lawfully wedded wife in this town Saturday night.
And they sealed it with a brief smooch after the mayor, who officiated the wedding, told them: “you may now kiss the bride.”
Rogelio Pangilinan and Juliana Ramos both heaved a sigh of relief after their civil wedding at the campus grounds of the Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology.
“It’s a dream come true,” says a visibly overjoyed Pangilinan of his union with Ramos. They were one of over a dozen couples who swapped I do’s in the mass wedding presided by Mayor Froilan Nagaño who also doubled as sponsor together with Board Member Romanito Juatco and Jon Padiernos, who represented Vice Gov. Jose Gay Padiernos.
The mass wedding was the main highlight of the affair which also included the inauguration of the sprawling municipal park and a rock concert.
Nagaño said the event was a wedding for all ages. “Here, you can see people of various ages getting married, the old and the young. Finally, their relationship will be blessed with this marriage,” he said of the couple.
Pangilinan told newsmen that before he met Ramos in 1980, he was a 36-year-old bachelor looking for a lifetime partner. “It’s love at first sight,” he recalls fondly.
Ramos is a mother of four children from her husband of a previous marriage. She has 17 grandchildren. Her first husband died in 1991.
Pangilinan said that in spite of this development, they could not get married right away, citing hard times.
