CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Grave robbers have desecrated the Bolonsori Public Cemetery in Barangay Camaman-an here, looting tombs of steel parts as an ongoing redevelopment into a city memorial park is taking place.

Ben Mondelo, chairman of the Bolonsori City Memorial Park Laborers Marketing Cooperative Board of Directors, said this could be one of the reasons why no names were recorded during mass exhumations, a part of the project where bones of the deceased need to be moved to develop the area.

He said that people from nearby areas might have resorted to collecting steel after losing their livelihoods. “If they see a huge steel part from the tombs, they would definitely get it,” Mondelo said in a media forum on Wednesday, December 13.

The Bolonsori City Memorial Park Laborers Marketing Cooperative is the partner organization of the city government facilitating mass exhumations and other functions at the 17-hectare cemetery.

Cooperative Manager Alma Geslaga said that they record details of every tomb where these unidentified bodies were exhumed to enable their families to identify them.

A TOMB was destroyed by an individual seeking its steel parts at Bolonsori Public Cemetery in Barangay Camaman-an, Cagayan de Oro City. (Photo courtesy of RPN DXKO Cagayan de Oro)

Last July 23, a media outlet here posted a family’s request on Facebook seeking help after the tomb of their loved one was destroyed and the steel parts missing.

According to the post, the unidentified culprit broke into the tomb’s mini-house before almost completely destroying the burial place.

An individual believed to be a scrap dealer was taken to the hospital on July 29, 2022 but was declared dead on arrival after being hit by a concrete wall in a chapel under construction at the cemetery.

Reports said the victim allegedly entered the area to collect iron and steel.

Engr. Armen Cuenca, head of the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CLENRO), said theft of steel has been a problem at Bolonsori Cemetery and that three individuals have been charged for robbery.

Cuenca said CLENRO and security personnel of Jejors Construction, contractor of the Bolonsori Cemetery Redevelopment Project, are patrolling the area and coordinating with the police and barangay officials but perpetrators are also keeping an eye on them.

“That problem will end once the installation of the perimeter fence is finished because we will not allow them to enter the cemetery during the night,” Cuenca said on Thursday, December 14.

The first two phases of the project, he said, have been completed, and they are now currently working on Phases 3 and 4, which are expected to finish in 2025.

Cuenca urged residents in the area to cooperate with the city government by reporting any theft in the cemetery.