Baguio cemetery congested; execs looking for new sites

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY -- The city government here is in desperate search for future cemetery sites even outside the locality or even alternative ways of keeping the city’s departed residents to help decongest the overpopulated public cemetery along Naguilian Road.

Reacting to queries on the availability of areas for burial spaces within the city’s public cemetery, Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan identified an adjacent vacant lot.

Domogan said it was purchased by the city government in the late 1990s for future expansion of the public cemetery.

The only problem is a lot of work needs to be done to alter the lot’s geography since it is steep.

At the same time, multi-level or condominium-type tombs will have to be constructed to conserve on space so more could be accommodated.

Domogan said there had been proposals of encouraging cremation of the dead so instead of burial lots, the space could be made into a columbarium that would store only ashes.

However, he said the practice of cremation is frowned upon by some groups and tribes.

He said the practice, in order to be accepted, requires massive information drive about cremation so people will be aware of its benefits.

For those who will be amenable to the idea, the local chief executive cited there is an accredited crematorium in Barangay Irisan, here, thus, the need to avail of the same to help in reducing the number of departed persons being buried in the public cemetery site.

Based on Resolution No. 681, series of 2000 of the Housing Land Use Regulatory Board the provision of land for additional cemetery sites would have to be sparsely inhabited and not suitable for agriculture, commercial or other productive uses; must be accessible; conform to the Sanitation code, Water code, National Building Code, Plumbing Code, Electrical Code and the Land Use plan and zoning ordinance of the local government unit where it is located.

The HLURB also prescribes limitations in the number of cemeteries in a local government unit so that there will be no congestion in populated areas.