'Sleeping with the dead' culture of Benguet lives on

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet, Cemeteries have been established in the towns but residents in this vegetable-
producing province still observe the culture of burying their dead very close to them usually at the
backyard of their houses.

"Closely-knit kasi ang mga tao sa Benguet. Inililibing sa katabi lang para mas close sila sa

namatay (People of Benguet are closely-knit that is why they bury their dead near their house)," said
Camilo Alumit, Executive Assistant of Governor Melchor Diclas.

Aside from being a native of Benguet, Alumit also served as a tourism officer of Kabayan town and as a
municipal councilor in charge of tourism and culture. He later joined the provincial tourism office.

Kabayan is known for its unique traditional practice of burying the dead which include mummification
that was observed in the olden times.

He said his parents were both buried very close to their family residence, in their backyard in Kabayan
and when he wanted the same when his time comes.

“The entire province still have it [the practice of burying the dead in the residential compound] even if
there are already cemeteries, especially if gusto nila mas malapit sa namatay (especially if they want to
be closer to the one who passed away),” Alumit said.

He said there used to be a public cemetery in Kabayan but after the strong earthquake struck in 1990,
people returned to bury their dead at their residential compound or a common family backyard.

He said the Karao tribe in Bokod, Benguet still practices burying the dead in their homes or the
backyard.

“'Yun siguro ang nakagisnan nila na kultura. When I attended one burial sa Karao, sa baba ng bahay,
kaya most of their houses are elevated, may poste (Maybe it was the culture they grew up with. When I
attended one burial in Karao, it was under the house that is why their house has posts and are
elevated),” Alumit said.
In the capital town of La Trinidad, the Laoyan-Abalos ancestral residence has a room devoted to the
burial ground of their ancestors.
In an earlier interview with former La Trinidad Mayor Greg Abalos, he said in one of the rooms of the
wooden structure, there is a table-like furniture that is covered with a cloth in a corner, looking like an
altar of some sort, but actually bears the gravestone of their ancestors.
He said it was the desire of their ancestors to be placed in the house for them to be always there with
their family.
Alumit said unlike in other places, burying the dead in the backyard does not require a special permit
since it has been a native practice observed by the ancestors in the old times that continue to the
present.
Burying the dead in one’s residence and the backyard is also proof of ownership of the land, he added.