House OKs bill capping casket price at P20,000 for poor folk

SOME RELIEF FOR THE GRIEVING A recently approved House bill requires funeral service providers to always have affordable but still “decent caskets” available for low-income families. File photo shows a casket-making shop in Santo Tomas, Pampanga province. —Inquirer photo

MANILA, Philippines — A burial need not cost low-income families an arm and a leg.

The House of Representatives has approved a bill to keep funeral services affordable to poor families by ensuring they don’t have to spend upwards of P20,000 for a casket.

During Tuesday’s plenary session, 198 lawmakers voted to pass on the third and final reading House Bill No. 102, or the proposed Affordable Casket Act, which proposes a cap on the price of caskets for families certified indigent by social welfare offices.

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The bill comes with tough penalties, including fines of up to P400,000 and possible license revocation for funeral service providers that fail to make decent and reasonably priced caskets available to indigents.

Required documents

HB 102 asserts it is part of the state’s responsibility to regulate the sale of caskets by funeral establishments to “ensure availability of affordable decent caskets to grief-stricken families, especially those classified as indigent and extremely poor.”

The draft measure defines an indigent family as one “whose monthly income is equivalent to the minimum wage set in the region where they reside.”

To avail themselves of the privilege, bereaved families must submit to the funeral establishment a certificate of indigency and a case study verified by either the medical social service of a hospital, the local social welfare office, or the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

“All funeral establishments shall at all times maintain available decent caskets with a price of not more than P20,000,” according to the bill.

“In the event that there is no such casket available when needed and the family of the dead is an indigent family or extremely poor family … the funeral establishment shall be obliged to offer a casket of any higher value, but the price to be paid by such indigent family or extremely poor family shall still be at an amount not more than P20,000,” it adds.

Penalties

Failure or refusal by a funeral establishment to make available affordable services to indigent families could merit a fine of at most P200,000 and a six-month suspension of its license to operate.

“Repetitive violations after the lifting of the suspension of its license to operate shall be penalized with a fine not exceeding P400,000 and a revocation of such license to operate,” HB 102 states.

The bill would task the DSWD with implementing the measure and crafting guidelines, while the Department of Trade and Industry is mandated to monitor the current market prices for caskets.

Funding is to be sourced from the DSWD budget in the annual General Appropriations Act, according to the bill.