Cementina, Pasay cemetery overflowing

An already conquested Cementina Roman Catholic Cemetery in Pasay City may find itself with no space for more dead, as its "apartment type" tombs are now 20 feet high, indiscriminately stacked one over the other.

Even footpaths in the graveyard along Arnaiz street have disappeared, as tombs have occupied them. Cemetery visitors have to give way time and again to passersby headed for the grave sites of their own dead relatives.

"The stacks are now up to nine. We do not know how high it will go," said one barangay tanod guarding against persons who try to slip in intoxicating drinks. Drinking liquor is prohibited in cemeteries to avoid violence.

Chief inspector Benjamin Marcial the head of the police contingent manning the area, along with some members of the Philippine Coast Guard, said that no untoward incident has been reported in the cemetery.

The administrator of the graveyard, identified only as Romy by tanods, could not be reached for interview regarding their system of burial in the "apartment" tombs. The administrator was reportedly busy locating some graves reported to be missing.

A look at the "apartment" tombs show their irregular sizes and their haphazard construction.

At Pasay’s bigger graveyard, the Pasay City municipal cemetery in Tramo, Administrator Alvaro Cuneta also complained of congestion but boasted of the "orderliness" of the cemetery.

Cuneta, a nephew of former city mayor Pablo Cuneta, said the cemetery has always been known to be peaceful.

Meanwhile, the Southern Police District (SPD) reported the situation in their area as peaceful with no major untoward incident being reported to them as of press time.

The SPD-Tactical Operations Center (TOC) said they had received no incident reports from any of the seven cities and municipalities in southern Metro Manila."There is no report of any incident," said SPD-TOC radio operator PO2 Joel Laraya. – Jose Aravilla