Marikina gov’t bans coffin displays, more funeral parlors

THE BUSINESS of looking after the dead must be so alive in Marikina City that the local government deemed it necessary to impose two new regulations.

Mayor Del de Guzman recently signed Ordinance No. 45, which bars local funeral parlors from showing coffins in their display windows, and Ordinance No. 76, which imposes a three-year moratorium on the establishment of new funeral homes.

According to Vice Mayor Jose Fabian Cadiz, they have been receiving “a number of complaints from citizens” regarding the practice of some funeral parlors of displaying empty caskets in full view of the public.

Such practice, the ordinance said, “creates sensationally gruesome, morbid or creepy feelings” among the people as they pass by. The local government hopes that this concern is addressed by limiting the displays to areas not visible from outside.

On the moratorium, Cadiz said the ordinance was passed following a “request” from members of the funeral service industry itself, who said the “mushrooming” of funeral parlors in the city over the last five years has dragged down their individual incomes.

Data from the city’s Business Permits and Licensing Office showed that there are currently 16 funeral parlors operating in Marikina, a city of about half a million.

Rosalinda Santiago, owner of one of the city’s oldest funeral parlors, welcomed the two ordinances.

Santiago said that when she started helping in the management of her father-in-law’s funeral business in 1976, they stopped displaying caskets in full view of passersby, since “we are not a variety store.”

“While it is normal for us (in the business), a number of people feel uneasy about it,” she told the Inquirer.

Celedonio Oroña Jr., a caretaker at a funeral parlor on a busy highway in Barangay Malanday, said that because of the ordinance, their “showroom” facing the street has been converted into a receiving area.

To show buyers their collection of coffins, a photo album would now do, Orona said.

With no additional competitors in the next three years, Santiago hopes that her funeral parlor could recover from the slump it suffered over the last decade, when its clients—she called them “cases”—dwindled from 60 to only 25 a month.

The moratorium could even help improve services that “give dignity to the dead.” In a crowded industry, she said, competing funeral parlors tend to lower their rates but “sometimes the quality of service is being sacrificed.”