EDITORIAL – The dead versus the living

THE current observance of All Souls Day –and All Saints Day – reminds us of a case in barangay Panacan, Davao City.
It was about the living versus the dead. It appears that the occupants of a low-cost housing subdivision petitioned for the removal of the public cemetery in the same barangay, obviously because it was unthinkable for a thriving subdivision to be located side by side with a cemetery which had 2,000 “occupants” (graves) and growing.
The controversial issue was debated on by the public and the city’s lawmakers, hogging the headlines of local tabloids in the process, and in the end it was the consensus that the cemetery should stay because it was established ahead of the subdivision. Besides, it was argued, under the Sanitation Code, a housing subdivision should not be established within 25 meters from an existing cemetery.
However, the cemetery and the subdivision are currently co-existing side by side.
The situation obtaining in the Davao City public cemetery, more popularly known as Wireless Cemetery, is vastly different. It was established in the 1920s and is only 1.1 hectare. Now undergoing a P5-million rehabilitation project, the cemetery is situated on an elevated area called Madapo Hill.  It has close to 8,000 graves. However, just outside it on the hillside of Madapo are more than 8,000 graves illegally “squatting” on the area. Occupied mainly by concrete tombs and niches, the area is reportedly in danger of being hit by an avalanche waiting to happen. When that time comes, there is no telling how many of the dead populating the small area will be buried yet again, this time by a landslide. They couldn’t care less, of course.