environmental issues

Chemical seepage forces Cagayan de Oro to close biggest public cemetery

Froilan Gallardo

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Chemical seepage forces Cagayan de Oro to close biggest public cemetery

The overcrowded Bolonsiri public cemetery in Cagayan de Oro is scheduled to be tear down to make way for a new one.

froilan gallardo/rappler

A DENR 2019 report says that the chemical formaldehyde, used in preserving bodies, has been seeping into the ground since the public cemetery was opened in 1982

The Cagayan de Oro City government is closing its biggest and 39-year-old public cemetery that a government report found to be “reeking with the embalming chemical formaldehyde.”

Armen Cuenca, chief of the Cagayan de Oro Local Environment and Natural Resources (CLENRO), said they have eyed an alternate site within the 19.2-hectare Bolonsiri public cemetery where they would transfer the remains of the dead.

He said the new site, about 10 hectares, is located within Bolonsiri property that would be developed complete with sewage treatment technology to prevent the formaldehyde from seeping into the ground.

“We cannot do anything anymore about the rest of the nine hectares,” Cuenca said.

“We are hoping that the natural filtration in the ground would prevent the formaldehyde from damaging the water table of the surrounding community,” Cuenca said.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources in its 2019 report said that formaldehyde, used in preserving bodies, has been seeping into the ground since the public cemetery was opened in 1982.

Since that year, the DENR said, an estimated 1,000 bodies have been buried every year at the cemetery.

The DENR said three liters of formaldehyde are used to preserve a single body or 3,600 liters a year. That is equivalent to 18 drums of the chemical being flushed to the ground every year.

The DENR report said the formaldehyde can be hazardous especially if it mixes with the groundwater.

“This area (Bolonsiri cemetery) has reached its maximum capacity. There is a need to redesign and develop it into a more efficient and environment-friendly memorial park,” the DENR said.

The Civil Registry Office in Cagayan de Oro recorded that it has given burial permits to 5,680 from 2015 to 2019 alone.

Cuenca said the city government has no record of how many more were buried between 1982 and 2015.

“Judging on how crowded the graves in this cemetery are, we estimate that more than 50,000 are buried there,” Cuenca said.

The cemetery is also where more than 1,000 residents who died of COVID-19 were buried since the pandemic started in 2020.

Cuenca said Patient No. 40, the first person who died of the COVID-19 in Cagayan de Oro, was buried there.

Patient No. 40 and the other COVID-19 victims were buried on top of a hill overlooking the cemetery.

“We will not touch the graves of the COVID-19 victims. It is still too early,” Cuenca said.

He said the removal of the old graves will start as soon as the winning bidder, Jejor Construction Corporation, is given the order to proceed by the city government next month.

He said a columbarium where the bones will be stored would be constructed within the planned 10-hectare cemetery.

Cuenca said all the new tombs and graves would be sealed to prevent formaldehyde from seeping into the ground.

The construction of the columbarium is expected to be finished by February 2022.

This will be the third time for a public cemetery in Cagayan de Oro to be transferred, according to local historian Nanette Roa.

She said the side of the St. Agustine Metropolitan Cathedral, where the Archbishop’s residence now stands,  was the location of the first public cemetery in the city at the turn of the 20th century.

As Cagayan de Oro grew, Roa said, the cemetery was transferred beside Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan along Hayes Street. 

Roa said the cemetery along Hayes Street had two sections – the Catholic and Iglesia Filipina Independiente sections.

The remains in the cemetery along Hayes Street would later be moved to Bolonsiri when lawyer Pablo Magtajas was mayor to pave the way for its development. It has since become a site for government offices, including the Hall of Justice that was condemned after a 2015 fire.

Roa said the Bolonsiri public cemetery was opened in 1982 when the late senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. was the city’s mayor.

Roa said it had two sections, one for Muslims and another for Christians. – Rappler.com

Froilan Gallardo is a Mindanao-based journalist and an awardee of the Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship

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