12 human skeletons found in Kawit school

CEBU, Philippines - Workers constructing a covered court at the Kawit Elementary School in northern town of Medellin have unearthed a lot of human skeletons while digging for post-holes.

This was reported by Medellin Municipal Planning and Development Officer Giles Anthony Villamor to Professor Jojo Bersales, the Capitol consultant on museum affairs.

Bersales, a local archaeologist, said that when he visited the area, the covered court’s post-holes had already been dug up and the bones were placed in a plastic drum.

The workers, though, had stopped the digging for days already.

Bersales found that only one burial was accompanied by an earthenware pot, an olive-glazed celadon bowl. He also saw the meter-wide and two-meter deep holes where the skeletons were recovered.

Bersales said that he was told by workers that the skeletons were buried in different positions, as if hastily buried, some on their sides.

He said that a cursory look at one skull placed on top of the heap of human bones in the drum showed that it was of an adult male, perhaps no older than 30 or so.

He was told that no tradeware ceramics or porcelain dishes or even earthenware fragments were recovered with the burials, roughly numbering to a dozen individuals.

Some residents believe that these were probably U.S. soldiers who died during the fierce battle with retreating Japanese troops in 1945, since the skeletons were large.

But Bersales has his doubts after a close inspection of some leg bones protruding from the drum.

Bersales was surprised to find a very large Binga or Bailer shell, with its inner structure neatly removed so as to make it useful for scooping or bailing out water from a baroto or banca like the one they have excavated in the adjacent town of San Remigio.

Bersales said that the Kawit Elementary School, like the kapuahan in San Remigio where they unearthed jar burials, faces the shoreline and the construction workers, once again digging post holes, not archaeologists, had accidentally unearthed human remains.

Bersales said his group will visit the area within the week to conduct inventory of the skeletons to determine how many individuals involved, the possible cause of deaths, their sexes, ages and other important details.

“The mysterious burials of Kawit will hopefully no longer remain an enigma if plans push through to carry out an excavation of the site pretty soon,” Bersales said.

He added that they owe it to themselves and the people buried there that they can find the right answers to questions that for now have to remain unanswered. — (FREEMAN)