Skeletal remains taken for granted

CEBU, Philippines - Over 300 remains of mothers, fathers, siblings and maybe heroes in their own ways and other great men and women of their time, stockpiled in the Lorega-San Miguel cemetery after they were displaced by a Condominium Project, seemed to have already been forgotten.

Two years after these remains were exhumed to pave way to the housing project, local authorities have yet to give them a decent abode. The remains were put in sacks and stockpiled inside a storeroom which used to be a daycare school for the children who live in the cemetery.

The Cebu City Government is supposed to construct a bone chamber to house the remains, but also considered transferring the remains to another cemetery.

More than five months ago, the Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor mentioned a pending negotiation with the Sto. Rosario Parish, administrator of the cemetery, for an agreement to accommodate the remains of those affected by the housing project.

The proposal of the City is to rent bone chambers at P8,000 each for a period of 50 years. It will cost the City Government almost P1 million.

Arsenio Quizon, 53, caretaker of the Lorega-San Miguel Cemetery, said that he hopes the remains will be given a decent place soon to help calm their restless souls.

The remains have no claimant. Quizon said no relatives ever come to visit or claim them.

He said the two-storey structure currently housing the remains has become haunted where they frequently hear loud banging at night.

“Naa’ya mamusdak sa taas magabii. Nya unsa man ang ibusdak diha nga wala man na’y gamit sa taas. Upat nako ka iro ang misaka diha, nangamatay tanan,” Quizon said. (We heard banging at night and we wonder why, when there are no things upstairs. My four dogs who went up there all died.)

When the condominium project was still being constructed, he said, one of the operators of heavy equipment died after seeing a woman that he thought he accidentally hit.

“Giagi ra kuno og hilanat, namatay dayon. Bisan ang ilang mga ekipo diha, pirmi mangaguba,” he said. (He suddenly just went feverish and died. Even their equipment often malfunction.)

His wife, Jocelyn, said she heard stories of three laughing children showing at the three-storey housing building.

Yesterday, Lorega-San Miguel Cemetery received less visitors than the previous years.

“Mingaw na kaayo kay naa naman ang condominium diha. Sa una maghuot na ang mga tawo diri buntag pa lang. Daghan pa kaayog maninda diri, karon wala naman,” Quizon said. (The cemetery has few visitors now compared before. Even the vendors have decreased in number.)

Two years ago, the Cebu City Government closed down the Lorega-San Miguel Public Cemetery to pave way for the condominium project. Since then, the cemetery is no longer accepting dead for burial.

Half of the two-hectare Lorega-San Miguel Cemetery was already converted into a housing site. The other half will also be converted into housing site soon. The City Government is working on the plan for the remaining half and processing the budget to be used for the proposed project.

About a kilometer from the Lorega-San Miguel Cemetery, 38 remains of the victims of the ill-fated Princess of the Stars burried at the Carreta Cemetery also received no visitor this year.

The cadavers remain unidentified since they were recovered from the ill-fated MV Princess of the Stars four years ago. The 38 unidentified remains were buried at the Carreta cemetery in 2009. They were among the hundreds who perished when MV Princess of the Stars sank off Sibulan Island in Romblon at the height of typhoon Frank. – (FREEMAN)