Death in the Philippines

Unfortunately, Mrs R's father passed away yesterday. He had been ill for a long time following a series of strokes and declined every year. I've known him since 2012 and never seen him anywhere close to good health. This past week, he had been refusing food (choking on even soup) and it was clear his borrowed time was up. So whilst his death has been expected for at least 18 months, the raw shock is still upsetting to Mrs R.

I do wonder what is going through the mind of her father as the time was approaching. He was surrounded by family for the last days of his life, with his brothers urging him to rest. He spoke to Mrs R frequently via Messenger and she too told him to stop hanging on and go to sleep. Her brothers stayed with him every night but were too distraught to tell him to give in. Her father was relatively lucid during these final moments. He would have known death was imminent. I suppose it's something that we will never fully understand how a person is thinking during those last minutes.

When he finally passed at about 11am UK time on Saturday, an ambulance arrived to their province house and took him to a funeral home. Rather bizarrely, the embalming process was pretty much live streamed over Facebook by one of his sisters for other relatives to watch. The person doing the embalming seemed entirely relaxed with everyone observing his work. I don't know how normal that is in the Philippines? I do know that death is accepted as more of a fact of life than in the UK. I know nobody in the UK who has lost a young child to mystery illness, whilst I know at least 3 people in the Philippines to whom this has happened. How often have you ever met someone in the UK who says, quite matter of fact, they had 4 children but 1 has died? Even so, broadcasting the embalming of her father's emaciated body seemed rather extreme.

The body is now in its coffin and returned to the family home where it is resting until Wednesday. Thankfully, no mention of Covid on the death certificate.

I'm not totally sure what is going to happen from now on. The family is INC so subtle differences to Catholic funerals. Apparently, there will be no mention of it in church.

The cost for a basic, Tarlac province funeral which includes the ambulance, embalming, mausoleum, flowers etc is estimated at P50k. Hopefully it won't exceed this as this price seemed reasonable.

To be honest, we should have got the finances for this sorted out a while ago. The death isn't a surprise and it was a surprise that he was alive to see 2021. Would strongly recommend anyone with elderly/vulnerable relatives in the Philippines to get these things budgeted and set aside. Death is always a matter of when, not if.

My condolences to Mrs R and family.

They can claim death benefit of P20K from the Social - as long as he worked and paid a stamp at some time. Lot's of them here get help from the "Card" too I think - micro lending organisation... as long as they've paid in a for a while. P50k sounds reasonable but you might get asked to chip in for the snacks catering - here it's normally 9 nights of mourning and a big meal before the burial ... etc And depending on where they want to put him - the "lot" unless they already have one.

Again good idea to make sure they pay a little voluntary sss if they haven't worked in a job that paid in... also check the record as some (many) employers here say they pay in but don't... then at least you or someone can claim 20K towards the funeral costs from the government.

The Death Benefit sounds interesting. Before his strokes, he was generally "self employed" so not sure if he will have ever paid stamps. I will ask them to investigate.

Recently, Food Panda has started operations in their nearest town which is handy for collections (they won't deliver to their quite remote barangay yet). I've already offered to pay for various foods to stick on a buffet but have been turned down. They reckon they've got that under control.

So Papa R was laid to rest on Wednesday. Most of it was live streamed as they took his coffin from the house, into the back of a car (can't really describe it as a hearse) and then a few miles down the road to the cemetery.

The colour code for the service was white. As we probably know, most ordinary Filipinos do not have formal clothing that we wear in Europe. A barong for special occasions, but that's about it. I always find it quite amusing when, for this solemn and serious moment, so many of the attendees are wearing their white MMA style No Fear t-shirts or a white t-shirt decorated with multiple Canadian flags.

Mama R was distraught as the coffin was taken out of the house. For the past 10 years, she had been his primary carer and the most recent 4 or 5 years, she had essentially had to care for him like a child as his health deteriorated. The days of a normal husband/wife relationship must have felt like a lifetime ago. Mama R had to be held back by relatives as the coffin entered the rear of the car. Photos and videos of these very personal and emotional moments all popped up on Facebook later in the afternoon. This is totally normal and nobody has mentioned that this might be intrusive.

When you watch any Filipino drama series, every single scene is filled with emotion or drama. You don't get any respite that you would get in say, Coronation Street, where Liz McDonald's hotpot is filled with laxatives just for the giggles before we go back to the serious business of Mike Baldwin kidnapping and torturing Emily Bishop in the knicker factory. I've always wondered therefore how much of the grief we see at Filipino funerals (and other events) is pure theatrics? They have been conditioned to think that reacting like this is the customary thing to do at funerals. The same applies to things like a breakdown of a relationship where the hurt party threatens suicide or deadly revenge on their ex-partner. Maybe I'm just being too insensitive?

Still waiting for the final bill for the funeral. The estimate is now approaching P70k rather than the previous figure of P50k. Not a terrible figure and we will pay our share of that.

I do feel quite guilty that Mrs R could not attend the service in person and has no plans to visit the Philippines in the coming months. From my perspective, I would possibly think it a blessing in disguise if I could only remotely attend the funeral of my father. I would very much prefer a low key event as opposed to the array of family from all sides which would add to my stress. But those are only my feelings. Whilst I haven't directly brought up the subject with her, I believe she would have dearly wished to be there in person for her father's last days and burial, and I'm the one responsible for taking that away from her.

Attended an online wake today from midnight to 3am,lolas brother, went to California to play golf with friends (he owns a golf-course in Guam), dead from a heart-attack, the youngest of the siblings at 79,self made multi-millionaire, landed in the States with an engineering degree and empty pockets is how he described his early life R. I. P Bing

Lolas brother is finally getting buried on Guam