CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The city government has started last month the renovation of the nineteen (19) hectare Bolonsori Public Cemetery which is expected to cost about P367-million.
The Bolonsori Public Cemetery is the city’s largest cemetery but only ten (10) hectares of the 19 will be rehabilitated as the remaining nine (9) hectares will be the relocation site of the informal settlers.
The land development started last October 9, 2021.
Engineer Armen Cuenca, head of the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO), said that they have completed the planning phase of the project with an estimated cost of 367 million pesos, “The project will run for two years with the area divided into four phases in development,” he added.
The rehabilitation will include the construction of a columbarium and crematorium and apartment-type niche which will serve as a perimeter fence.
“Even before the (Covid-19) pandemic, when we’re planning this, the crematorium was already in the plan. The columbarium will serve as the new niche for the remains of those buried here,” Cuenca added.
The shortage of the cemetery lot has prompted the city government to rehabilitate the cemetery said Sol Mosqueda, the focal person for the project.
Mosqueda said that since 1982, they estimated that 50 thousand were buried here and the space has run out.
“This is a problem of space management and we need to standardize our cemeteries,” Mosqueda said.
The city has 21 cemeteries, four of which are private cemeteries.
But there is a problem though, 355 families occupied spaces inside the cemetery and needs to be relocated to pave the way for the rehabilitation.
THE RESIDENTS
Yolly Almonte, 25 years old who was born and raised inside the cemetery, said their transfer to a relocation site would mean loss of their daily income. Her family is among those who labor for the maintenance of the graveyards.
Almonte said, maintaining the graveyards has been her source of livelihood since childhood and the planned rehabilitation will mean she lost her earnings.
Almonte’s neighbor, Fe Genese, shared the same sentiment “My daily income of 300 pesos will be gone as surely, the development here will mean I will have to look for other means,” Genese said.
Some vendors selling flowers, candles will also lose their dwellings. According to Cuenca, vendors identified by the city government will have priority space for the commercial center at the front of the cemetery.
EXHUMING THE BONES
United Methodist Church Pastor Kenneth Base asked the city government to be cautious “As respect to our dear departed, we buried them here with love and respect, and this plan to transfer them, should be the same way also,” Base said.
Prayers should be offered before the remains are transferred, Base said.
For Ustadh Misu Ari Manguis of the National Commission on Muslim Filipino (NCMF), the transfer of remains of Muslim is allowed if there is a necessity for it. “in Islamic teaching, if the remains need to be transferred from one site to another, that is ok as long as it necessary,” Manguis said.
Cuenca said that those buried underground will not be transferred “only those buried in a niche shall be transferred.”.
For those buried below ground, the city will construct a memorial wall where names will be written. “There are those who are buried here whose relatives have forgotten them already, we will write their names in memorial walls, we have a registry for this,” Cuenca said.
