Foreword
The Pre-Marriage Program is a flagship endeavor of the government designed to help engaged couples understand their roles, rights and obligations as married partners and would-be parents. The program has been on-going since the late 1970s. There have been two Pre-Marriage Counseling (PMC) manuals produced since then. However, many developments have happened in terms of new laws, new trends, and new leaderships. Despite all these, many Pre-Marriage Counselors have not been given refresher training on PMC updates while some new ones have not undergone any training at all. In mid-2009, the Board of Commissioners of the Commission on Population directed the conduct of an assessment of the PMC Program the results of which will serve as guidelines for the revision of the 1996 PMC manual and the 2002 PMC Implementing Guidelines. This Pre-Marriage Counseling Manual: Nurturing the Marriage and Family – A Content Guide and the accompanying Process Guide are the results of that assessment. While the development of the manuals took place during a short period – from August to December 2009 – care and special attention to details have been poured into their crafting to ensure overall technical accuracy, usability and appropriateness of the subject matter to the counselors and their audience – the engaged couples. Several consultations at the national, regional and even city levels, two pretests and four field tests were conducted in order to facilitate the crafting of these manuals.