THERE is a land of the living and the land of the dead and one of the bridges is St. Francis Memorial Homes on Natalio Bacalso Ave. in Cebu City.
Joy Enriquez, the funeral parlor’s officer-in-charge, said they are the answer for poor families who cannot afford expensive funeral arrangements for their departed loved ones. A family, she said, can avail itself of a complete memorial service package for P8,000.
“Apil na na tanan. Ang lungon, pag-embalsamar sa patay, paghatod sa balay ug paghatod sa lubong (It covers everything. The coffin, embalming, transport to the house and to the funeral),” she said.
She said St. Francis is the funeral parlor of choice by the police in retrieving the victims of shooting incidents and fatalities of anti-narcotics operations.
“Dali ra gyod mi makadagan. Mag-una pa gani mi sa SOCO (We even arrive before the Scene of the Crime Operatives),” she said.
St. Francis, she said, does not have a separate record of persons killed in police operations. Enriquez, however, observed they were able to retrieve several dead persons either killed in police operations or killed by riding-in-tandem assassins in the past two years.
In the past 30 days alone, St. Francis retrieved 32 dead persons referred to them by the police, according to Enriquez.
If after four hours no relative claims a murdered person, St. Francis would embalm the dead.
Five of the 32 dead persons brought to St. Francis were the suspected pushers killed during the One-time, Big-time operations by Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 last Oct. 4.
On the same day, the five men who were killed by unidentified gunmen in Barangay Malubog, Cebu City were also brought to St. Francis. But some relatives of the victims who have memorial plans with other funeral parlors transferred the dead.
Enriquez, however, said the family has to pay P10,000 for the transfer, which they call as “pull-out charge.”
From July 1, 2016 until Oct. 21, 2018, anti-narcotics operatives of PRO 7 have killed 254 suspected drug personalities.
PRO 7 Director Debold Sinas said the operations were all legitimate.
Six unidentified dead persons stored in the funeral parlor’s morgue in the past three months are still unclaimed. They are still dressed in the clothes they last wore and their bodies are preserved in a sea of formalin.
The Cebu City Health Department has given funeral parlors only six months to store unclaimed bodies. Afterwards, Enriquez said they are required to get a death certificate before burying the unknown dead.
Enriquez said St. Francis often services more than 100 bodies per month.
“Wala gyoy adlaw nga maserohan mi (Not a day that we don’t receive any body),” she said.
Enriquez said their funeral parlor will continue to thrive even if there are no suspected drug pushers or criminals killed as at least one person will die every day either of illness or old age.
“Dali gyong kuwarta sa punerarya (Money is quick in this business),” she said.
St. Francis’s most expensive casket costs P300,000 as it is made of metal designed to be durable in a long period of time underground or inside a burial vault.
“Ang lawas madugta gyod siya, pero ang lungon dili madugta,” Enriquez said, adding that no one bought a metal casket in the past months as the price can hurt most of the living than the dead. (KAL)