Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Oro cemetery turns into a banana farm By Annabelle L. Ricalde
NOT all cemeteries, after all, look forlorn and abandoned. In Cagayan de Oro, the government-run Bolonsiri Cemetary in Barangay Camaman-an looks like a banana farm than a burial ground.
What appears to be a cultivated area for banana of Cavendish variety occupies a sizable portion at the rear end of the cemetery. The bananas are planted in between the tombs, effectively blocking visitors who wish to negotiate the narrow pathways of the cemetery.
A personnel of the City Public Services Office (CPSO), the City Hall agency that maintains the cemetery, said the small plantation has already been there when the CPSO assumed the management of public cemeteries from the City Economic Enterprise Division (CEED) in 2006.
The planters -- a family living in a relocation site just outside the cemetery -- have been issued a cease and desist order by the City Legal Office, said the CPSO personnel, who requested anonymity because he lacked clearance to speak on the matter.
The stoppage order apparently fell on deaf ears.
"They would only promise to cut down the bananas every time they are confronted about it," he added. "So far those promises haven't been fulfilled."
Erlinda Galario, 56, admitted their "little banana farm" sits on a government property -- and a cemetery -- and is not ashamed about it. She said their use of a government property is a matter of quid pro quo.
"We have been maintaining cleanliness in this cemetery for quite a while and we are not paid for that. So we think it's fair that we plant something in here and earn a little," she told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro in the dialect. She added that without the planted crops, weeds can easily straggle up and cover the graveyard.
Galario said income from their monthly harvest ranges from P3,000 to P4,000 -- except on November when they cut down the bananas to give way for the All Souls Day. A wholesale buyer ships their bananas to Manila, she said.
Unlike other local government units -- such as San Carlos in Negros Oriental -- City Legal Officer Maryanne Enteria said Cagayan de Oro has no ordinance prohibiting the planting of fruit-bearing trees or edible plants within cemeteries.
However, this does not allow anyone from using government properties for personal use, Enteria said, even as she vowed to look into the matter.
But illegal or not, should anyone eat anything planted on a cemetery?
"Even an ordinary person like me knows that bananas -- or any plant for that matter -- absorb nutrients from beneath the soil through its roots. So naturally, the dead had something to do why the bananas are thriving well," Remedios said in the vernacular in her stall at the Cogon Market.
"The thought of it makes me shudder to the bones," she added.
