250 unclaimed bodies buried in mass grave

MANILA, Philippines – The unclaimed corpses of at least 250 persons, stockpiled by a funeral parlor in Quezon City, were buried in a mass grave yesterday to prevent the spread of disease.

Bodies and body parts, in different stages of decomposition, were placed in 201 garbage bags and dumped in a grave about seven feet deep and fifteen meters squared at the Novaliches Public Cemetery in Barangay Novaliches Poblacion.

Health officers did not take DNA samples from the bodies.

The mass burial was one of the largest in the history of Quezon City, second only to the Payatas tragedy in 2000, according to city officials.

The bodies were recovered from Henry’s Memorial Services in Barangay Paang Bundok, La Loma. The funeral parlor was illegally operating as a funeral parlor and storage facility without proper permits, officials said.

The parlor did not have a refrigerated storage area for the bodies.

Stashed

Those living near Henry’s Memorial Services said homicide victims were reportedly brought to the funeral parlor by several funeral homes from Manila.

One firm, the Saint Rich Funeral Services, was reportedly often seen delivering bodies from the Manila Police District to the funeral home, according to several residents interviewed by The STAR.

Quezon City civil registrar Ramon Matabang, administrator of public cemeteries, said Light Funeral Homes approached him to retrieve its dead from the funeral home, which continued to operate even if it had been shut down by the city government on Sept. 23.

Matabang said funeral parlors in the city were also “leasing” storage from Henry’s Memorial Services for their dead.

A funeral parlor, the Everlasting Funeral Services, found itself in a bind after one of its dead was buried in the mass grave.

City officials could not accommodate Everlasting personnel as they found no tags on any of the corpses in the facility to identify which body is the funeral home’s.

The employee of the firm, who refused to be named, said they had to turn over the body earlier this month to the morgue of the Henry’s Memorial Services as Everlasting only had temporary facilities.

More corpses, more questions

Two dump trucks had to be used to transfer the corpses to the cemetery from Henry Memorial Services’ office.

Thirteen personnel from the public cemetery had to aid city officials in burying bodies as well as bags of severed limbs, internal organs and the sawed-off tops of skulls.

City health personnel have yet to finish the job – they have yet to clear out a concrete shed and a “well” used by the funeral parlor to store corpses, said health officer Verdades Linga.

City officials are asking where the bodies came from, when they were brought to the facility and who put them there.

City health officers said it was not their mandate to investigate how the bodies came to be stockpiled in the funeral parlor.

“We really don’t know. There was no identification of these bodies, what matters to us most is public health,” Linga said.

The Quezon City police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit said its investigators found no documentation and no proper identification tags on the bodies.

About a third of the bodies buried yesterday were supposedly “preserved,” which could be an indication that they came from medical schools, Linga said, adding that they cannot verify this since the funeral home’s owner has yet to surface.

Matabang said the company was registered under the name of Oscar Parales, supposedly the son of “Henry,” the original owner of the funeral service.

Severino Mancia, alias Boy, allegedly serves as the operator and maintainer of the facility.

The owner or maintainer of the company could face charges for not complying with the sanitation code as well operating without the required business permits for the last three years.

Blood on the street

City health officials were greeted by stockpiles of unclaimed corpses during a raid on Tuesday following a surprise inspection last week.

The city health department staged the raid after it received numerous complaints about a foul odor emanating from the funeral parlor, which caused some residents to fall ill.

Blanquita Angeles, a resident, said during the rainy season when the streets would be flooded, blood from the funeral parlor would also flow along A. Bonifacio Avenue, one of the busiest highways in Metro Manila.

Angeles added that they have been smelling foul odors from their sinks and drainage canals for years.

The foul odor was because Henry’s does not have a sewage treatment plant, a requirement for any funeral service company, according to city health officials.