PRESIDENT Rody Duterte, while on the campaign trail, vowed tens of thousands of people would be killed in his brutal war against illegal drugs.
He even advised in jest for people to set up funeral homes in preparation for the killings. "The funeral parlors will be packed. I'll supply the dead bodies," he said, to cheers and laughter at one campaign rally.
Some 5,000 drug suspects have been killed in the war against drugs. Are the funeral parlor operators happy now?
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President Duterte said in September he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts as he vowed a relentless war until the illegal drug trade has been eliminated.
The New York Times, in one of its editorials, said, “Alas, he is a man of his words,” referring to the president.
If the funeral parlors are happy, they’d be happier, if the death toll in the drug war, widely cheered by Filipinos, mounts.
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But it appears the reverse is true. An Agence France Presse (AFP) report said funeral parlors, while busy, are not necessarily making lots of money, with relatives of many victims often too poor to be able to pay for a funeral.
AFP quoted one funeral director as saying he often gave discounts, especially for families of alleged drug users, some of whom paid in coins or raised money from gambling at wakes.
He said some also begged cemeteries for free caskets.
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Executives of some funeral parlors told AFP bodies were frequently left unclaimed because relatives of the victims did not know about the death, were afraid of being linked to drugs or were simply too poor.
In these situations, the bodies are kept for two to three months then buried in public cemeteries, at the expense of funeral homes.
Well, every business has risks. Perhaps, for the funeral parlors, it’s not only the steady supply of dead bodies, but money to pay their services too.