Probe eyed on apartment tomb rental scheme

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III wants to investigate an alleged scheme of renting out apartment-style tombs in public cemeteries across the country, following the unauthorized exhumation of 800 bodies in Marikina just as the country commemorated All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

- MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB

Pimentel said the Senate local government committee should investigate the alleged practice of emptying tombs with expired leases and transferring the remains without the families’ consent.

He also wants to know if the rental scheme is being done in other cemeteries nationwide, saying that it “is not a good setup to be hostaged by the bones and remains of departed loved ones.”