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Monday, June 26, 2006
In Lorega, shelter is truly a matter of life and death
By Linette C. Ramos
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
WHEN inside the Hansori Children’s Learning Center in Barangay Lorega, few would suspect they are at the center of a public cemetery.
Instead of the trees and immaculate granite crosses cemetery visitors are accustomed to, rows of houses that stand precariously on top of filthy tombs greet people who visit the place.
To its many residents, it is both a resting place for the dead and a community for the living.
Cemetery caretaker Favian Rafols Jr. is proud of his split-level hut that stands atop two tombs, one of which he has used as a makeshift foyer, the other as a dining area. If he doesn’t look too closely, a visitor can also mistake the aging tombstone in front of the house for a doormat.
The more enterprising residents have also made use of the tombstones for their businesses. Just behind a learning center inside the cemetery, a pig’s offal is hung out on the tombs to dry, to be used later in a resident’s chorizo business.
The livelihood they keep inside the cemetery and the peace and silence the place offers are just some of the reasons more than 330 families are asking the Cebu City Government to convert the cemetery into a socialized housing site.
For Rosemarie and Oscar Sanchez, it has more to do with the spiritual guidance and the blessings they believe they are getting from their “neighbors.”
“Daghan na gyud ug natabang namo ang mga kalag diri sa panahon sa kalisod. Among mga bata ug masakit na gani, amo rang ipangadyi sa mga kalag ug mayo ra dayon sila (The spirits here have helped us through our hard times. When our children fall ill, we pray to the spirits and they are immediately healed),” Oscar said.
Four of their seven children, aged between nine months and 15, were born inside their makeshift house inside a fenced mausoleum.
The couple ekes out a living by cleaning the tombs nearby and by guarding the mausoleums in the cemetery.
It’s also their way of thanking the families of the departed for letting them stay in place, rather than throwing them out, Rosemarie added.
Rafols admits the stench coming from the garbage dump and from exhumed cadavers can be too offensive, but he believes it is the quiet life he has been living there the past 30 years that has kept him healthy.
“Naa siguroy daghan nga dili ganahan mupuyo kuyog sa mga patay pero sa akong mahinumdoman sa pagkabata namo, gwapo gyud kaayo ni nga menteryo kay limpyo, walay hugaw. Karon bisag baho na, gusto unta ko na ari na gud mupuyo kay sa akong pangidaron, ganahan na ko ug linaw, kanang wala’y samok,” he said. (Most people won’t want to live among the dead, but I’ve always seen this as a clean, quiet place. There’s no trouble here.)
Right in the middle of the cemetery and a few meters from the Sanchez home, the Hansori children’s feeding and learning center stands, appearing as roof over the three oversized tombs underneath. The tombs, in turn, serve as a bed for a tired vendor taking his siesta.
Taking note of the unsanitary environment and unhealthy living condition of the people in the area, the City Council has put on hold the discussion on the conversion of the cemetery into a housing site.
The councilors agreed to wait for the City Health Department and the Department of Health’s comments on the effects of the conversion on public health.
But for Rafols and the Sanchez couple, the comforts of the place they call home and the livelihood they get inside the cemetery compensate for whatever health hazards there may be.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 26, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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