1,000 storm victims’ bodies still unprocessed–de Lima

GOVERNMENT forensic experts will resume “right after” New Year’s Day processing the bodies of more than 1,000 victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in Tacloban City that remained unidentified, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said yesterday.

Right now, a token force from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Technical Services division, which supervises the NBI disaster identification team that processes the bodies, remains in Tacloban after forensic experts suspended their work and left for the holidays.

De Lima said that according to Edward Villarta, officer in charge and deputy director for NBI Technical Services, the small force was burying 418 corpses that had been processed.

“Actual processing will resume after New Year’s Day,” the justice secretary said in text messages.

She said the NBI, which is under her department, will beef up the token force with additional forensic doctors “as soon as possible.”

The justice secretary made the statements in reaction to a wire report that said 1,400 corpses remained unburied in Tacloban after government forensic experts suspended the processing of the bodies due to the Christmas holidays.

Malacañang, however, refused to believe the reports of corpses left rotting outside Tacloban City seven weeks after Yolanda devastated Leyte and nearby provinces.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma yesterday said the report needed to be verified with the government agencies concerned.

“Perhaps we need to verify the situation that we’re seeing and know the bigger explanation because there are agencies responsible for these matters,” he said in Filipino in an interview over Radyo ng Bayan.

The report had said that more than 1,000 corpses were still awaiting burial in Barangay San Isidro, much to the concern of local residents who had to endure the stench from the body bags.

“The stench has taken away our appetite. Even in our sleep, we have to wear face masks,” a resident told Agence France-Presse.

Coloma maintained that the Department of Health was coordinating with the Department of the Interior and Local Government in the identification and proper burial of cadavers.

“We will find out what the agencies concerned have to say,” he said.

“What I can say is there is already a program for these things and based on the reports that we got, the authorities are not neglecting [the cadavers].”

At last count, Yolanda killed over 6,000 people and left more than 1,700 still missing.

De Lima said that according to the NBI forensic doctor, a body is processed after it is subjected to a forensic exam.

“The establishment of the full identity of a person will come after it is identified through the three major parameters—DNA, fingerprint and dental,” she said.

A body that is processed by forensic experts then is not yet identified but “properly tagged, has tissue taken for DNA, dental record taken, body marks, for matching with claimants,” De Lima said.