Actor John Arcilla’s father dies in Baler

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino actor John Arcilla’s father Dominador Alemania Arcilla died in Baler, Aurora, according to a Facebook post by John on Sunday evening, April 5. He said that his father “did not die from COVID-19,” the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

“If not for the quarantine which I believe is necessary, and this painful circumstance which understandably need not to favor with our grieving family, I would not express anything about my father’s fate,” the Heneral Luna star wrote. 

John expressed the sadness he felt of “not seeing even his body” for the last time, even if they were only 5 hours away from his father in Metro Manila. Due to the Luzon-wide lockdown and the enhanced community quarantine’s physical distancing rules, wakes and celebrations of mass are not allowed, which according to John, isn’t “easy to handle.”

“Our family wishes to cremate his body and pray together with his urn after this lockdown but we don’t have crematoriums in Baler and travel permits are complicated to process. The funeral services can not send their staff with my father’s remains in Cabanatuan or Manila. They can get a travel permit from the origin, but their staff has to be quarantined for 2 weeks or more in their second destination, and has to settle another set of travel permit,” John explained.

His father’s body had to stay in a funeral chapel for two days without a wake, and had been buried with a “restricted attendance” of people the next day. 

“Half the number of my siblings are here in Manila and all the grand children are based here. We also need to settle travel permits but they can not guarantee if the checkpoints will allow us to come back to Manila after 2-3 days. Most probably, they will send us back to Baler or we have to be quarantined for 14 days or so in Baler or in between towns,” he added.

John said that he does not blame anyone for the situation, and this “sense of judgement and reasons fully understood the consequences.”

“I just need to express something that is too much bear,” he said, asking for prayers for his family and for his “beloved father.” – Rappler.com