Bulatlat.com

The Costs of Dying

To many Filipinos, dying is as costly as living itself. Expenses continue to pile up from the time a loved one is buried to the annual celebration of remembering the dead. Well, it’s part of Christian tradition, never mind if this means spending more. In the Philippines, the costs of burying and remembering the dead also reflect the wide disparity between the poor and the rich.

BY YNA DT SORIANO
Bulatlat.com

If you find the high cost of living to be unbearable nowadays, wait till you hear how much your loved ones would have to cough out once you die unexpectedly.

In a survey among funeral parlors and public and private cemeteries, Bulatlat.com found that the cost of dying – from funeral services to acquisition of a burial lot – would definitely boggle and bring the mourners to their knees without being able to make any provisions for a decent burial of their dead.

Nowadays, anywhere from P50,000 up to more than P100,000 is the estimated cost for a decent middle class burial with all the trimmings that make the rituals of dying an absolute tradition in Philippine culture. Families of the rich and famous of course spend more with grand funeral services accentuated by bronze or copper caskets and posh burial grounds – all reaching to as high as P300,000 up to half a million.

Forget about preparing a middle class burial then – but you will still need at least P15,000 just to buy a decent coffin and a secure burial site. The destitute would just have to rely on charity or the abuloy (donations) to be able to bury their dead. Some politicians readily foot the bill, especially if the bereaved relatives are numerous enough to count on come election time.

The cost of dying

Reynaldo Espiritu, jobless, died of a lingering illness last year. Beth, his wife who launders for income, was immediately thrust into the problem of where to take her husband after hospital attendants pronounced him dead.

A funeral parlor offered to take care of everything: picking up Rey’s body for embalming, dressing him up in an ordinary coffin, providing the paraphernalia for the wake, processing the necessary permit and documentation, and bringing his body to the cemetery – all for a package fee of P15,000.

Beth was also offered to cremate the body of Rey - for the same amount.

Lucky for Beth who had no savings whatsoever as she still had hospital bills to take care of, a social worker connected with the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) assisted her in availing of a free funeral service for charity cases. The PCSO shouldered the funeral and burial expenses of Rey.

But Beth’s next problem was where to bury Rey’s remains.

An “apartment” (tombs or niches piled one on top of another are called such) at the Manila North Cemetery would cost her P1,200; P4,500 for a solo niche.

A P25,000 to P75,000 burial lot (a 2.44 sq. m. lot in a private memorial park costs about this much) is out of the question for Beth’s meager means.

Saddled with debt and with no money in her pocket, Beth settled to have Rey buried next to her husband’s mother at the Bagbag cemetery in Novaliches, Quezon City.

Dying – a luxury

For most Filipinos, dying may already be considered a luxury. But when death in the family comes (as it always comes unexpectedly), it is almost a luxury that most Filipinos cannot do without.

As always, the wake would have to be set up. A three-day up to a week maximum watch before the burial is a must, especially in order to raise more abuloy for those in need. In urban poor communities, saklaan or card betting is resorted to for fund-raising. Some even place their dead and tables for the sakla players right in the middle of the street.

But aside from the financial windfall which can be had in such activities, some sociologists say that a certain degree of gambling almost always takes place during a wake because it is the Filipinos’ way to get reacquainted with relatives whom they may not have seen for years.

The business of dying

While the cost of dying is becoming more and more prohibitive for the average Filipino wage-earner, some businessmen are finding the funeral business or its related services a gainful occupation .

Rene Mendoza, owner of Norsam Memorial Chapel in Tandang Sora, Quezon City, confided to this writer that he started in the business after conducting his own research. When asked what he found out with his research that prompted him to start a memorial service, he said that his kind of business has become a necessity, so much so that he has a ready demand for his products and services.

Although Norsam has been in operation for only 18 months, Mendoza is already expanding with the on-going construction of a six-room air-conditioned chapel and mortuary service.

Aside from his memorial chapel, Mendoza is also into casket making. This, he said, is his advantage over the big memorial and funeral parlors, as he can lower his price he being the manufacturer himself. Other funeral parlors, including the old and big ones, source their caskets from outside, including Norsam.

Mendoza said that Norsam offers as much as 50 percent discount from the price being offered by established funeral parlors.

His lowest funeral and memorial service is P12,000, which he said includes everything plus a piece of lot with tomb at the Bagbag public cemetery in Novaliches, Quezon City.

No fixed cost

There is no fixed cost for dying. There is only an ever-increasing cost as families of those left behind by the dead find out.

Aside from the traditional nine-day-to- 40-day-after-prayer and babang-luksa (one year after death) – where all relatives and clans gather in a party of sorts -- there are many other traditions in Filipino culture that make dying an endless ritual of expenditures.

November first, regarded as All Saint’s Day in the calendar, is undas for most Filipinos.

Although the yearly trooping of families to cemeteries to visit departed loved ones is observed not without spending a few hundreds to thousands of pesos, most Filipinos still regard this exercise as an obligation they should not miss.

While lamenting the fact that she will have to allot about P1,500 for cleaning and repainting the tomb of her mother at the Bagbag public cemetery, Rita Espiritu-Reynolds is eagerly anticipating this yearly chore before November first.

Others learn to be frugal in accomplishing this chore. Paint is re-mixed with water and they do the whitewashing of the tomb of their dead kin themselves.

But come All Saint’s Day, aside from the transportation and food costs of visiting relatives, the other costs of the event can get escalating.

The price of candles and flowers for example can gobble up a week-long pay of the Filipino worker earning the minimum wage of P250, including the measly P15 first tranche of the P30 additional cost of living allowance recently mandated by the National Capital Region Wage Board.

An unadorned one-foot length and one-inch diameter candle costs more than P50, while a simple vase with flowers costs about P150. More elegant flowers and candles are definitely more expensive.

To live or die

Many Filipinos are finding it a hard choice in finding out which is becoming costlier – living or dying. In the Philippines, the past few days saw hundreds of thousands of workers from all over the country taking to the streets to agitate for a legislated P125 wage hike.

Given the Filipinos’ traditional custom of high respect for the dead, Filipinos would most probably not mind spending for their dearly departed.

But a lot more Filipinos would definitely mind if the government continues to be passive and insensitive to people who earn less but must spend more just to go on living. Bulatlat.com

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