200 niches allotted for poor in Angeles

ANGELES CITY—A private cemetery here allotted 200 niches for poor residents in this city although the Supreme Court had voided a provision in an ordinance similar to the one that the city council approved in 1968 for charity burial.

The Holy Mary Memorial Park (HMMP) here “voluntarily entered into the [memorandum of agreement (MOA)] in the service of their fellow Angeleños, following the Catholic Church’s teachings of charity and preferential treatment for the poor, and not because of any legal compulsion to do so,” Robin Nepomuceno, HMMP president, said.

The MOA is between the Nepomuceno family and the city government.

The donation is valid for 10 years depending on when the city government would finish the construction of a public cemetery, the MOA said.

“They recognized the need. We felt it came from their heart,” Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan said on Friday after learning the status of the 44-year-old Private Memorial Park Type Cemetery Ordinance.

Section 6 of the ordinance required private cemeteries to allot 5 percent of their total area for charity burial.

But the Supreme Court ruled that Section 9 of a similarly worded ordinance of Quezon City was null and void for being an improper exercise of police power, and for an act that was tantamount to intruding into private property without due process, Nepomuceno said.

“An addendum to the MOA is being drafted to increase the number of niches to be built from 100 to 200,” he said.

Pamintuan said the public cemetery would be established on a 1-hectare lot in Sapa Libutad here.

The Cutcut Cemetery, built on a lot donated by the Nepomuceno family to the Archdiocese of Manila, has been renamed Holy Rosary Catholic Cemetery and will be repaired, Pampanga Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David said. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon