Tug-of-war erupts over victim’s body

The case of a man killed in Malabon City last week left quite a few people, even longtime police investigators, shaking their heads in disbelief, not because of the manner of death but the way his body was handled.

Already in a body bag and laid out on a stretcher, the corpse of Julianito Noquio Jr. was halfway inside the service vehicle of a government-accredited funeral home when his father, Julianito Sr., objected.

“Leave his body alone. From whom did you ask permission to get his body? That’s my son. I’m the one whose instructions should be followed here,” he told the personnel from Eusebio Funeral Homes.

Unexpected response

Apparently daunted, the undertakers stopped loading his son’s body into their vehicle. They took it back to the spot where he was shot dead, removed it from the body bag and placed on the ground, near the pool of the victim’s blood. One of them even rearranged his right leg, bending it the way they first found it.

Julianito Sr. said he wanted the mortuary of his choice to take care of his son’s corpse. “We already called a different establishment. It’s embarrassing if they get here and see that the body’s gone,” he angrily told the funeral home workers.

This was not the first time the Inquirer had seen relatives of killing victims demanding that the bodies be handled by their chosen funeral homes.

Their main concern: Compared to other establishments, government-accredited mortuaries charge higher fees which range from anywhere between P30,000 and P100,000.

However, they would often lose the argument as the police would explain that the bodies had to go to accredited funeral parlors for safekeeping and the conduct of an autopsy.

In Noquio’s case, however, his father got his wish but only after a standoff which lasted around 10 minutes.

The subsequent actions of the funeral home workers, however, shocked reporters and even policemen who had been to hundreds of crime scenes.

Return to sender

“My God this is the first time I saw a ‘return to sender’,” a photographer said.

“How could you do that to the dead? My God!” said Chief Insp. Shirleen Ballete of the Northern Police District’s Scene of the Crime Operatives.

“This is the first time something like this happened to us,” she added.

Ballete, however, said the funeral homes could not held criminally liable because it was the family’s choice to have the victim’s body handled by another establishment.

According to her, the body should have been taken to Eusebio Funeral Homes where it could be claimed by the other funeral parlor instead of being dumped on the street.

Noquio was walking on Letre Road in Barangay Tonsuya shortly after midnight on Feb. 16 when he was shot eight times by a still-unidentified person. Found in his bag was P250 in cash and a pellet gun.

No motive yet

The police have yet to determine the motive for the killing.

Julianito Sr. said his son left their house in July after getting death threats.

He didn’t even know that his namesake had returned until neighbors woke up him and said that his son was dead.

Ballete, meanwhile, confronted the undertakers for their treatment of Noquio’s body. She told them that instead of dumping the body, they should have taken it to their establishment where the victim’s family could arrange the transfer.

“Can someone please get a blanket?” she called out to spectators at the scene.

A boy later returned with a piece of white linen which fluttered in the cold wind as it was draped over Noquio’s body.