Project inside cemetery to affect 75 remains in Kidapawan

KIDAPAWAN CITY – At least 75 remains would be exhumed starting Wednesday at a private cemetery here to make way for an improved memorial park. Rambe Ramel, owner of the Cautivar Cemetery located along Bautista Street, said they have already informed relatives of those buried in the graveyard about the exhumation since 2007. “Yet only few responded to our call to have the remains of their relatives removed from the ground and transfer them to another place," he said About 500 tombs are located at a portion of the cemetery that is owned by Ramel’s wife, Shirley Cautivar, who owns 25 percent of the 1.3 hectare-cemetery. The other portions are owned by three of her siblings. Cautivar is planning to construct a semi-memorial park inside her lot. The couple said the exhumation will not desecrate the dead. “We will only dig the tombs that have no tombstones and those buried for more than 10 years," they said, adding that exhumed remains will be buried in one common ground inside the cemetery. Some families who have relatives buried in the cemetery, however, are opposing the plan. Some residents, meanwhile, said the exhumation should have permission from health and sanitation office of the local government unit. Ramel said they will only bulldoze those graves that have already been abandoned by relatives for many, many years. A state prosecutor here said exhumation of dead should undergo a process. “Even a simple request for an autopsy of the dead should undergo a process. How much more if the plan is to exhume many, not only one, dead in a cemetery?" said City Prosecutor Al Calica. The Cautivar Private Cemetery used to be a public graveyard in 1950s. When Cautivar’s parents had the area surveyed in late ‘70s, they found out that the cemetery was part of their property. The legal battle to reclaim the property started in early ‘80s. It was only in 1997 that the Cautivar finally repossessed the property. - KBK, GMANews.TV