The old Lorega Cemetery is now empty of cadavers, and was transformed into a site where the living thrive to create a safe and peaceful community. (CDN PHOTO/ TONEE DESPOJO)
Amid the densely populated Sitio Kamansi, Barangay Lorega San Miguel in Cebu City lies a 9,000-square-meter lot that used to be the oldest cemetery in the city.
The remains of great Cebuano revolutionary leader Gen. Enrique Lorega, Gen. Arcadio Maxilom, Sen. Don Vicente Sotto, Major Oscar Salis and hundreds of soldiers who fought in the Second World War were once buried in the graveyard which dated far back to 1912.
Today, a small urban poor community stays on the site where Cebu’s dead used to rest though unthinkable to many people overcome with horror over the ghastly thought of living amongst the dead.
Right in front of what used to be the gravesite’s bone chamber, housing more than 3,000 cadavers exhumed from the cemetery, is a three-storey low cost condominium built by the residents themselves under a program by the non-governmental organization, Gawad Kalinga (GK).
The GK Lorega site occupies one fourth of the Old Lorega Cemetery with the rest of the graveyard converted into a market, a basketball court and a
fire relocation area.
It all began in 2007 when a fire razed through Sitio San Roque, Lorega, burning down more than a hundred houses.
Months later, GK representatives offered to help with a project wherein families who wanted to secure a safe place had to pledge to do the labor on building their new home.
The land was to be provided by the Cebu City government; and what better site was there than the old cemetery which, in the 1970s, had slowly been invaded by informal settlers.
Officials discovered the cemetery had become densely populated by the living that it had violated the Sanitation Code mandating that a graveyard should be at least 25 meters away from residential areas and at least 50 meters away from a water source.
Later on, living relatives of the deceased also decided to move the remains of their loved ones to other less crowded and more secure graveyards.
Building on a gravesite
In May 2011, 52-year-old Elvie Carlo was among those who did not hesitate to carry a hammer and haul planks of wood on her back to help build their future home, the GK community in Lorega.
Elvie recounts that as she was piling hollow blocks at the construction site, a Japanese family came visiting with candles and flowers. Only one of them knew how to speak English, an old woman.
“The Japanese woman was asking if I happened to know of a Japanese soldier buried here. She said he was her husband who died in World War II,” Elvie told Cebu Daily News.
Elvie admitted to the elderly tourist that she did not know of any Japanese buried in the area, nor of any bones left lying beneath the site of her future house.
“At first, I was surprised on the possibility that there could still be skeletons around. We really thought that the nitsos (coffin vaults) were empty and no one would bother visiting them,” Elvie said.
A year later, Elvie’s efforts paid off as she, along with others who helped build the condominium, were each granted rights to live in a 480-square-feet, studio-type unit for a minimal monthly rental of P300.
“Sometime in 2014, all the bones were claimed by the living relatives. The chamber is still there but there are no more bones. The visiting stopped, too and last year, no one came by to ask us if there were still dead bodies here,” she said with a giggle.
The acacia tree
But the dead bodies that might still lurk are not the only ones that cause some residents to be anxious at times.
Elvie says that while construction was going on, some of them had to take turns in clearing remnants of the cemetery including the coffin vaults, tombstones, headstones, and even Michelangelo’s Pieta which once stood as a landmark of the old graveyard.
But one structure remained untouched as its size and age intimidated everyone: Lorega’s centuries-old acacia tree.
“My grandparents used to tell me as a kid that you should never make noise around a very large and old tree because there are creatures living there,” said Elvie adding that while the thought of living in a place that used to be for the dead scares many, she has never encountered any paranormal experiences.
However, Elvie’s grandchildren claim that when they were little, they used to play with someone wearing black slacks and a Barong Tagalog.
“They usually played around the acacia. My neighbors and I even searched the entire Sitio Kamansi and asked other people around, but no one knew him or even saw him. My grandchildren are turning into teenagers, and they have stopped talking about him,” Elvie said.
Curfew rules
The moment the condominium units were deemed fit to be occupied, GK officials imposed several rules for the tenants of the Lorega condominium.
Printed on a big tarpaulin displayed on one side of the building, the rules include a curfew at 12 midnight.
Elvie narrates while no one cared about observing the curfew before, things changed when a neighbor nearly suffered a heart attack one night after seeing a lady dressed in all black, roaming the front yard.
The man’s daughter, Mary Ann, told CDN of how her father, who suffers from hypertension, used to break the curfew just to go on drinking sprees with his friends outside the GK community.
One night in 2014, Mary Ann said they were all awakened by her father’s screams.
“When I opened the door and turned on the lights, I saw my father running like a murderer was chasing after him. He got into our house and he was really pale. At first, we all just laughed when he told us that a ‘black lady’ frightened him. But soon, more of us shared the same experience,” said Mary Ann in Cebuano.
From then on, GK occupants have started to consider the rules set by the organization and even more, as they actively participate in activities involving values formation.
“Now we’re training our young ones to follow the rules, no matter what. It’s for the best of everyone,” said Elvie adding that it has dawned upon them that the real threats come from real, breathing people who may enter the premises.
Last June, GK residents opposed a government plan to set up a temporary shelter for mendicants or street dwellers right in front of their building fearing that the entry of strangers may affect the peace that they currently enjoy.
“Murder is even very likely to happen anytime, if we are not careful,” said Elvie.
Ironically, the small urban poor community that now peacefully lives in the Old Lorega Cemetery is more afraid of the living than the dead.