LGU Eco-Cemeteries
November 1st, 2007 | by Eric N. Aseo |Undas na liwat, time to remember dead kith and kins and be reminded of our own mortality. But it can also be a time for us, the living, to think up of more evolved ways to bury our dead.
Our current practice is to bury them in cemeteries where they are entombed and housed in mausoleums, if their families have the means or be given up to the earth only if their families can’t afford entombment.
Yes, inequality persists even in death and human greed doesn’t die with the dead. Instead of allowing dead bodies of family members to return to the earth to join the food chain and feed life, we prefer to trap them in concrete.
LGUs in Eastern Samar perhaps can open cemeteries where entombment will be prohibited. We shall mark our dead instead with trees like narra, hamorawon, molave and other hardwoods. For every dead, a family will plant a tree, take care of it and protect it from loggers and forest fires. In ten years maybe, we shall have mini-forests in every town and communities of tree-lovers, who by all means will protect the mini-forests, because they serve as links to dead friends and kins.
After some little landscaping, the mini-forests or eco-cemeteries can be turned into parks with benches under the trees. The benches will sit old friends, as they listen to Sitti, sip coffee and think of happier times with the dead beneath them. In the parks, LGUs can put up coffee shops, which shall be managed by LGU employees’ coops. The shops will play lofty Bach at dawn and sexy bossa at dusk. The parks will be places where the living and the dead will literally become one. Dead bodies will fertilize the soil that provides nutrients to the trees, that emits oxygen for the living to breathe in, so that the living will live to reminisce old times with the dead. And yes, the trees in these cemeteries will also help absorb the greenhouse gases, we emit, that contribute to global warming.
Putting up new cemeteries may not earn fat kickbacks for local officials, but it will earn them pogi points for contributing to efforts to save the earth. And who knows, the same points may be useful, when their time comes.
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Eric N. Aseo
3 Responses to “LGU Eco-Cemeteries”
By salukara on Nov 5, 2007 | Reply
you should know, pati kamposanto ginkakwartahan hit at mga politiko ha Eastern Samar.
By maria on Nov 6, 2007 | Reply
wow! great idea eric! it would be more soulful being buried in that mini-forest and in such a way also contribute in the rehabilitation and protection of our environment.
hope our provincial and municipal leaders will take this as one of the many alternative solutions to global warming and climate change.
let us help save our earth.
By mistah on Nov 6, 2007 | Reply
i’m just wondering,eric, if the idea finds favor in catholic cathecism.