Families protest unauthorized exhumations at Marikina cemetery

Family members of exhumed remains at Barangka Municipal Cemetery camp outside the administrative office on Friday, November 1, 2024, to raise concerns over unauthorized exhumations of their departed loved ones in Marikina City. JOWN MANALO / INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Family members of the exhumed remains at Marikina’s Barangka Municipal Cemetery camped outside the cemetery’s administrative office on Friday to raise concerns over unauthorized exhumations.

Affected families said they were not informed about the exhumations, leaving them surprised to find their departed’s tombs either empty, missing a tombstone, or marked with a different name.

Marivic Bedico, a relative of one of the exhumed remains, expressed her frustration, stating she has no idea where her father’s remains are currently located.

“They have been removing our departed family members’ remains, and mine was just right there in front. They could have posted about it since I live in Barangka, too. I’m really frustrated because my father no longer has a tombstone there; it seems like someone else has been buried in that spot,” Bedico told INQUIRER.net in an interview on Friday.

According to Bedico, her family has lost the remains of three departed relatives: her father, sister, and niece.

She further lamented having paid a retention fee of P100 last year, only to find out that the remains of her family members had been exhumed and she does not know where they are now.

However, in an interview on Wednesday, Barangka Municipal Cemetery Administrative Officer Reynato Beltran explained that remains exceeding the five-year limit must be exhumed due to the cemetery’s capacity of 5,000 graves, with no options available for renewals or retention.

READ: 800 sacks of human remains exhumed at Marikina public cemetery

Eddie Pelueta, another concerned family member, questioned how the cemetery administration could guarantee that the remains of their deceased remained intact following the exhumation.

“How can we be sure if they mixed everything up? They could have removed the bones all at once, just piling them up and putting them in bags. What’s worse is that the skulls might have been mixed with other bodies. The skull doesn’t belong to the same body,” Pelueta said in Filipino during an interview on Friday.

Similar to Bedico, Pelueta lost the remains of his late father following the exhumation.

“The family should have been informed before any exhumation. They should have notified us during our last visit,” he expressed in Filipino.

Officials from the Marikina City Health Office (CHO) have been addressing the families’ concerns since Friday morning, while the cemetery administration has yet to meet with them as of writing.

According to the CHO, they will first locate the exhumed remains before turning them over to the concerned families.

Romulo Yahin, another individual who lined up for clarification, echoed the same response in an interview, “They said that no one is allowed to retrieve their family members’ remains right now because only the City Health Office can approve that since it requires a permit.”

During a one-on-one dialogue, the CHO requested Yahin’s contact number, assuring him that they would reach out once his relative’s remains had been located.

“They have a tagging system to identify what and whose remains the bones belong to. They will locate them first before they can return them,” Yahin added in Filipino.

However, he and the other concerned family members maintained this is insufficient to guarantee that their departed’s remains are still intact after being located.

“There is no assurance that the remains can be claimed, nor is there any guarantee that the remains inside the tombs are still those of our relatives,” Yahin said in Filipino.

READ: Marikina mayor: Syndicate may be behind dig up of remains in cemetery

Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro announced on Friday that the city government has informed families whose loved ones’ remains were illegally exhumed.

He further stated that the local government is prepared to offer free burial and cremation services for these remains.

Teodoro suspected that a syndicate may be behind the illegal exhumation of remains in Barangka Municipal Cemetery.