Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 8) — The Philippines has recorded a 7% increase in births among girls aged 15 and below in 2020, up from the figure on teenage pregnancies in 2019, the Commission on Population and Development said over the weekend. In a statement on Sunday, PopCom cited the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority which revealed that Filipino minors who gave birth in 2019 increased to 62,510 from 62,341 in 2018. This is the ninth consecutive year that the country has reported a rise in teenage pregnancies, PopCom warned. "In 2019, 2,411 girls considered as very young adolescents aged 10 to 14 gave birth, or almost seven every day. This was a three-fold increase from 2000, when only 755 from the said age group gave birth," the commission said. It added that one in three births among minors occurred in the three regions of Calabarzon with 8,008, National Capital Region with 7,546 and Central Luzon with 7,523 births. Outside Luzon, the highest