EDITORIAL: Costly Farewell

IN the Philippines, dying is apparently not enough. One must also have enough money to pay for a decent farewell.

For families who have spent their savings, borrowed money, or even sold personal belongings to settle hospital bills after a loved one's prolonged illness, death can bring another financial headache. The struggle does not end when the patient's heartbeat stops. In fact, another round of expenses begins: the coffin, embalming, flowers, funeral vehicle, wake, burial plot and, of course, food for relatives and friends who come to pay their last respects.

Apparently, even saying goodbye has become an expensive undertaking.

Government figures show that 9.7 percent of the Philippine population, or 11.1 million Filipinos, were poor in 2025. A family of five needed at least P14,634 a month to meet its basic needs. Meanwhile, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data indicate that 69 percent of households had no savings in 2023. Its latest survey also showed a sharp decline in the Saving Intention Index, from 12.4 in the first quarter to negative 0.7.

With so many families living from pay check to pay check, where exactly are they supposed to find money for an unexpected funeral?

The funeral industry offers a rather sobering answer. The cheapest wooden caskets now cost between P25,000 and P40,000. More elaborate models, particularly metal caskets, can command prices ranging from P150,000 to P400,000, depending on their design and materials.

And that is not all. Holding a wake in a funeral chapel may cost another P4,000 to P5,000 per night. Cremation, supposedly a more affordable alternative, can still cost between P33,000 and P135,000.

Apparently, even in death, there is a price difference between economy and premium.

One cannot help but recall the unfortunate experience of Avelino Galvan, whose family in 2019 could only afford a P9,000 funeral package. When floodwaters entered their home, where his wake was being held, his wooden coffin was damaged. His relatives had to repair it using packaging tape, cardboard and cord.

It was a heart-breaking picture of poverty, made even more painful by the fact that the family could not afford anything better. While some families can arrange elaborate funerals with expensive caskets and grand floral displays, others struggle simply to keep the coffin intact until burial.

The inequality does not end there. Even the final resting place of the deceased comes with a price tag. Private cemetery lots can cost anywhere from P60,000 to millions of pesos. A garden lot may reach P3.2 million, while an estate lot can command as much as P18 million.

For ordinary families, apartment-type tombs remain a more practical option, although these, too, require payment and are often leased for only five years.

One wonders whether the departed are also expected to worry about the expiration of their lease.

Fortunately, public cemeteries in some communities provide burial spaces free of charge to qualified residents. But access to such assistance varies, leaving many families scrambling to find an affordable final resting place for their loved ones.

The situation has prompted humanitarian initiatives such as Project Arise of Catholic priest Fr. Flavie Villanueva, which helps families of victims of the bloody war on drugs secure dignified burials, including assistance for exhumation and cremation.

The government, for its part, has institutionalized funeral assistance through Republic Act No. 12309, or the Free Funeral Services Act, which lapsed into law in 2025. It provides free funeral services to qualified indigent families and households facing crisis situations, including those affected by disasters and emergencies.

The law is a welcome measure. However, its implementation must be accessible, efficient and responsive to the immediate needs of grieving families. Requiring documents and social case studies is understandable to prevent abuse, but assistance that takes weeks or nearly two months to process is hardly comforting to a family that needs to bury a loved one now.

Grief does not wait for government paperwork. Neither does the need for burial.

The government must therefore ensure that the law translates into actual assistance, not another bureaucratic exercise that leaves poor families running from one office to another while mourning their dead.

Local governments should also explore ways to expand free or subsidized burial spaces, strengthen funeral assistance programs and establish partnerships with funeral service providers to make basic funeral packages affordable.

Dignity in death should not depend on the thickness of one's wallet. A simple wooden coffin should not mean a lesser farewell, just as an expensive casket should not be the measure of how much a person was loved.

After all, the dead do not need imported flowers, expensive upholstery or a million-peso cemetery lot. It is the living who need the comfort of knowing that they have given their loved ones a decent and respectful send-off.

Poverty is already cruel enough while people are alive. It should not be allowed to dictate how they are buried.

In a country where millions struggle to afford three meals a day, perhaps the least we can do is make sure that families do not have to take out another loan just to give someone a final meal of remembrance.

Because in the Philippines, it seems, one can be poor in life, poor in death, and still leave behind a bill that the living will have to pay.