Dapecol inmate who died of pneumonia allowed 3-day vigil in Davao del Sur

HAGONOY, DAVAO DEL SUR—Residents here were alarmed when they learned that their local ambulance, or the vehicle they were using for emergencies, had carried the body of an inmate from the Davao Prison and Penal Colony (Dapecol) for burial in Barangay Sacub here.

Inquirer learned from a resident that the driver of the town’s emergency vehicle went around the nearby town of Padada on Thursday looking for an embalmer while transporting the body of a 47-year-old woman who died of pneumonia at Dapecol in Panabo, Davao del Norte.

The vigil at the residence of the dead inmate which started on Thursday night also caught the attention of local authorities for its failure to follow the rule on social distancing and for violating Presidential Decree 856 or the Sanitation Code of the Philippines.

It turned out, however, that Hagonoy Mayor Franco Calida was the one who ordered the transport of the body from Dapecol in Panabo, Davao del Norte to here.

Calida also clarified that the vehicle was not an ambulance but a rescue vehicle used by the local government to respond to the people’s needs in town.

The mayor also said he only wanted to help the family who was too poor to get the body from Dapecol.

“I offered help because they cannot even buy a coffin,” Calida said. “There was no available funeral car to bring the dead here because of the lockdown brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic so I ordered the driver to use our rescue vehicle to bring it,” Calida said.

He also said that the inmate died of cancer and that he would not allow the body to be brought here if it were a COVID-19 case.

But the death certificate obtained by Inquirer showed that the “immunocompromised host” died of pneumonia and respiratory failure.

The mayor also said he already allowed the family to hold a three-day vigil before the dead would be buried inside the family compound on Monday, April 27.

But residents insisted that that died during the COVID-19 pandemic were supposed to be buried immediately even if they were not COVID-19 cases. The family earlier planned to bury the remains within their family compound but Calida, who seemed to have changed his mind, said he already ordered the municipal health office to conduct contact tracing and told barangay officials not to allow the burial within the family compound.

/MUF