Barangays want city to handle burial assistance

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City government will take over the implementation of the burial services portion of the city’s burial assistance program after the barangays complained they could no longer handle the paperwork.

Councilor Jose Daluz III, chairman of the council’s committee on budget and finance, said the barangays want to return the implementation of the program to the city government because they determined that payment to the funeral parlors will be fast tracked if it is handled by the experts.

But the city will only take back the burial services portion which amounts to P8,000 per beneficiary while the P10,000 cash assistance will remain with the barangays.

Daluz said that the P8,000 worth of burial services will be bid out to all interested funeral parlors in the city.

At least 1,000 packages will be bid out initially for this year.

The package shall include the casket, embalming and make-up of the deceased, viewing equipment or apparatus at deceased’s residence of community chapel within the city, processing of death certificate, processing of burial permit, use or parlor’s hearse and a sympathy bouquet.

It will be bid out to interested and qualified funeral parlors from which the city government will pick two providers.

There are six barangays implementing the program, three in the north and three in the south.

The barangays delegated in the north are Cogon, Talamban and Busay while in the south are barangays Basak San Nicolas, Guadalupe and Tisa. Each of them is assigned to a cluster of barangays.

At present, the barangays facilitate the release of the assistance but sometime in 2010, funeral parlors threatened to stop their service because the payments were delayed.

Daluz said that there are also advantages if they bid out the services like the price of the package may still go down since it will undergo competitive bidding. (FREEMAN)