Industry report There’s life in the dying profession

THINK of an embalmer, and chances are this scene would come to mind:

It’s late at night, and an overhead lamp is trained on a stainless steel table where a pair of gloved hands are unbuttoning the shirt of a lifeless body. As the man in white coat turns his back to grab some cotton and a dark-tinted bottle, his subject stirs, then sits up, and suddenly the tables are turned: the undertaker becomes the object of the dead’s (and our) attention.

Depending on how the mortician reacts, we either feel a chill shoot up our spine, or contort our torso in a fit of laughter.

If the character appears flat, then blame it on how the popular media caricatures the embalmer: he’s a nameless victim or a comic relief — either way, miserable. But nothing could be further from the truth. Take the case of Vicky Pagayon. It is the actors — or should we say their loved ones — and not her, who line up to avail of the services of Ms. Pagayon, a mortician for one of the big-name funerarias along Quezon City’s funeral parlor strip.

Her roster of past “clients” include actors Fernando Poe, Jr., German Moreno, Rico Yan, Miko Sotto and AJ Perez, as well as former senator Raul Roco, and religious cleric Jaime Cardinal Sin.

“Sinasabi ko minsan sa kanila, ‘ Hindi na ako pipila, andito na ako sa iyo ngayon’ (I sometimes tell others, ‘I don’t have to fall in line, I’m already with you’),” Ms. Pagayon would humor herself.

Nearly two decades in the profession, she has mastered the art of restoring the dead to make it appear they were merely asleep. Servicing a “case” is no easy task, as Ms. Pagayon handles each body as if they were family.

“Maligaya na rin ako na napapaayos at napapaganda ’yung mga mukha ng mahal nila sa buhay. Sabi nila bumabata ang mga mahal nila sa buhay. One hundred-and-ten na siya, akala namin 80 pa lang (I’m glad I was able to improve the faces of their loved ones. They say their loved one looks younger),’” she said.

Ms. Pagayon began working as a janitress in the same funeral home, but in 1997 became a licensed mortician. She has since been promoted to embalmer supervisor, earning P18,000 a month, enough to send her two kids to a public school, pay for a housing loan and to support her mother. At times, she gets a tip from the