Stranger in the tomb

With orchids in hand, 80-year-old Sylvia Sun visited Carreta Cemetery, the final resting place of her mother and son, on All Saints’ Day.

She was in for a surprise.

Someone else’s gravestone partly covered the front of the bone chamber, whose dark interior made it difficult to see if the tomb was empty.

She went to the office of Jessie Desuyo, the cemetery’s officer-in-charge, to complain and ask where the remains were taken.

“Sakit baya, ug malain ka,” said Sun. (We feel hurt and disappointed.)

Desuyo asked her to present a receipt to verify ownership even as he admitted this was a common complaint, not just during All Saints’ and Souls’ Days in November.

A caretaker may have carelessly removed the remains, he said, or worse, it may have been traded in the illegal sale of grave lots by settlers in the cemetery.

“Present your receipt first,” he said, “so we can trace whether your loved ones are really buried there and for us to offload it.”

The Sun family’s marble gravestone was replaced with a cracked concrete slab which read “In Remembrance of Roma.”

At least 30 families still live in the 4.3-hectare cemetery owned by the Cebu Archdiocese and administered by the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral under Msgr. Roberto Alesna.

The archdiocese is having difficulty getting squatters to move out.

“Settlers were given notice in 2010 to leave but they refused,” Desuyo added. The settlers, many of them migrants, do odd jobs in the cemetery as “lapida” makers, vendors and caretakers.

Desuyo said about 10,000 are presently buried in Carreta, the second biggest Roman Catholic public cemetery in Cebu City, after Calamba.

Police post extra personnel when crowds swell on Nov. 1 and 2. On off-peak days, public safety is an issue in Carreta which has become known as a hangout for petty criminals and juvenile delinquents.

Sun’s mother was buried there in 1962. Following standard practice, after five years the remains were transferred to a bone vault.

Sun recalled paying P350 for a “perpetual” plan.

“We paid the bone chamber which is perpetual, which means the bone chamber can accommodate our relatives for a lifetime,” Sun said.

Her last visit was in 2012.

The possibility that the tomb was violated by parties involved in the illegal sale of spaces in the cemetery is not farfetched, although the cemetery’s management has yet to check.

On Friday morning, Desuyo was still finding out whether the Sun’s loved ones were transferred to the storage area or were still inside the vault.

The burial fee in Carreta is P3,500 he said. After five years, a notice will be sent to the families reminding them to transfer the remains to a bone chamber within 30-days.

It costs P10,000 to use a bone chamber. Full payment is needed before any transfer is made. For half the amount, one could only reserve the space.

Mrs. Sun said the family never received a notice.

With the mystery still unsolved, the family had to settle for offering prayers “sa dakung krus,” (at the big cross) a common prayer area where people, who don’t have specific graves to visit, light candles for departed loved ones.