Solon to national govt: Shoulder costs for burial, cremation of COVID-19 victims

MANILA, Philippines—The national government should pay for the burial and cremation of patients who die of the coronavirus disease or COVID-19, according to Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.

The government, through the Department of Health (DOH), “should pay for all the burial expenses of all [COVID-19] patients on a reimbursement scheme where the local government units (LGUs) will first respond to the burial needs from the hospital to the funeral parlor/crematorium to the burial site,” Rodriguez said in a statement on Friday.

He proposed that LGUs should create “fully protected teams to take care of cremation and other burial arrangements,” of which all expenses should be reimbursed by the DOH.

“We should discourage relatives from directly participating in these arrangements for their own protection and safety, as they would be exposed to the virus,” Rodriguez said.

He said he made the appeal “after watching on television last night ‘a pitiful sight of widows of [COVID-19 victims] walking long distances from the city hall to the civil registry to the crematorium/burial site to attend to their dead.'”

“We should spare them such pain and agony. That is adding insult to injury since they have already lost their loved ones to this deadly virus,” Rodriguez said. He added that the Muslim tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours should still be followed.

The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Monday directed all LGUs to ensure that corpses of those who died of COVID-19 are cremated or buried within 12 hours, following reports that a government hospital in Quezon City might need more mortuary freezers for unclaimed deceased COVID-19 patients.

Makati City Mayor Abby Binay also announced that the city government will be shouldering the expenses for the cremation of COVID-19 victims in the city. Each cremation will cost the Makati City government P18,300.

Rodriguez, however, noted that most LGUs “are not like Makati in terms of financial resources, and the national government should help them by reimbursing the full cost of cremation/burial of COVID-19 patients’ remains.”

/MUF