Not many people have the nerve to take on his job.
For 18 years, Dr. Rene Enriquez Cam has been handling human corpses, examining victims of
gunshots, sea tragedies, natural calamities, and all kinds of crime amid the stench of decomposing flesh.
As chief medico-legal officer of the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7) in Cebu City, the 54-year-old doctor has to determine the cause and manner of death, and sometimes to identify cadavers.
His medical career intersects with a larger mission to seek justice for victims of violence, who can no longer speak about how they died.
The work requires stamina, confidence, an eye for detail, and strong analytical skills.
Dr. Rene Cam in his NBI office in barangay Capitol Site, Cebu City. On his desk is a miniature model of human skull made of cement he bought 12 years ago in a cemetery. (CDN PHOTO/ADOR MAYOL)
It’s also a rare job. Cam is on solo flight with the NBI in Central Visayas. The only other medico-legal officer in the region is assigned with the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Why did you choose to be NBI’s medico-legal officer?
I started my career with the NBI in 1997. Actually, I was waiting for a slot in the orthopedic division of the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center in Tacloban City when Atty. Reynaldo Esmeralda (former NBI 7 director) encouraged me to apply in the NBI. So I did.
I never expected to be a medico-legal officer. I wanted to be a surgeon like my father and my older brother. We’re a family of physicians. My elder brother’s wife is a gynecologist and my wife is an anesthesiologist. But it’s too late to transfer to another speciality now.
What does the work involve?
I conduct autopsies, do medico-physical and medico-genital examinations, make reports on the examinations conducted, go to court and testify on the exams, and do other duties assigned to me from my senior officers from time to time.
Many people think the job is messy and dirty.
Actually, that’s true. It’s messy but somebody has to do it. We don’t have the luxury of convenience and time. When we go to a place hit by disasters like Supertyphoon Yolanda, we sleep in tents. We don’t wait for people to help us.
Time is of the essence because the more you waste time, the more the body will decompose and it becomes difficult for us to identify them.
Can you tell us how autopsies are conducted?
I look at everything I can find, from the minutest detail to the biggest.
You start from the head down, take note of the injuries, and from those injuries you can already determine whether or not there are signs of foul play. For example, not all people floating in the river or sea died of drowning because they could have just been thrown into the water. You have to take note of the lungs, see if there’s water. Sometimes if people drown, they swallow sea water, even sand or seaweed.
We need to do a complete autopsy even if the injury is located in part of the body. If the requesting party doesn’t want us to open the head of the deceased, then it won’t be a complete autopsy. We tell them it’s either a complete autopsy or none at all because when this reaches the court, there will be questions about why a complete autopsy was not done. So to erase doubt we have to conduct a complete job.
The cause of death can be determined if you open the body. For example, if a person died of myocardial infarction or heart attack, when you look at the heart, all signs are there. There’s a dark area or the tissue is already dead because no oxygenated blood reached it. The arteries are obstructed or very narrow. This way we can determine the cause of death.
Do you perform any rituals before and after conducting post-mortem examinations? Do you talk to cadavers before starting the process?
No, we don’t do that. We only ask permission from the requesting party. We bear in mind that in conducting autopsies, we’re actually helping secure justice for the dead person and his or her family.
How long does an autopsy usually take from start to finish?
It depends. In a shooting incident for example, if there is one bullet which is very difficult to find, then it will take us a long time. But if we’re dealing with entrance and exit wounds only, then it won’t take long. Usually, an autopsy lasts an hour or more. Not shorter than an hour though.
You don’t put on a mask when conducting autopsies. How can you stand the stench?
The foul smell is no longer a factor for us. Even when we were still studying medicine, we already dealt with cadavers.
We were trained not to wear masks. I’m used to the smell of decomposition. I’ve conducted autopsies on over 500 cadavers so far. That’s quite a number already.
Do you have any unforgetable or unusual experiences while conducting post-mortems?
Usually, it happens when we conduct autopsies on shooting victims. When the bullet is very hard to find, my technician will say to the dead body, “Help us. This is for you. Please show the bullet.” And then later on, we would find the bullet. That’s what my technician does. But in reality, that practice is not necessary.
Have you seen spirits of dead persons?
Never. But I believe that human beings do have souls. That is why we always think of the human body as sacred even if it’s dead. When we went to Tacloban City after Yolanda struck, I saw rescuers, firemen, the army, and policemen dragging bodies from the site. I told them to carry the bodies. You do not drag them because even if they are dead, human bodies are sacred. In fact, I advised them not to bury the bodies in a mass grave but to place them properly in individual graves.
The NBI 7 has new rooms and facilities for post-mortem examinations. How will these help you?
The new equipment arrived three years ago. But it was available only a year or two after when the office was constructed. Little by little, we will try to make it complete.
If you were not a medico-legal officer, what would you have been?
I would have been an orthopedic surgeon. In high school, I wanted to study in the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) but my father didn’t allow me. He always told me, “Be a doctor first and you can still join the military as a doctor.”
What do you think is your mission and purpose as a medico-legal officer?
My purpose is really to help secure justice for victims of crime. No matter how far we need to go, we will do it.
Yes, I’ve handled cases which the media consider high-profile like the death of Judge Martin Ocampo and the Estanislao Bismano case. But I don’t want to consider certain cases high-profile because I consider all my cases just as important. If I can examine the late Judge Ocampo like that, I can examine other people like that. There’s no distinction. I treat them as the same. In court, it becomes a high-profile case, but the post-mortem examination is still the same.